Lost Girl
by RoniMikaelson
Summary: When a seventeen year old girl is found and proven to by Tony Stark's long lost daughter, everything changes. Kai Grace has a mysterious past and dark secrets, but when SHIELD gets involved and The Avengers Initiative is started, she's dragged even deeper into a dark life. Complete.
1. Run

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* * *

She was running, sprinting as fast as she could. The rain was pouring down and it soaked her to the skin, as if to add insult to injury. Her wrist was broken, no doubt about it. Blood gushed out of a cut on her forehead and more blood made her shirt stick to her shoulder. She was getting dizzy and her she was pretty sure that she was about to throw up. She forced herself to keep running. _You're fine, you're fine_, she repeated to herself over and over. It was the dead of night and she wasn't familiar with New York streets, to be perfectly honest. She wore clothes that helped her blend in nearly anywhere: ripped jeans, combat boots and a white t-shirt that said 'Born to Run'. The irony of that wasn't lost on her... The backpack on her shoulders held everything that she owned.

"You'll be safe, they said. No one will ever be able to hurt you again, they said." She growled underneath her breath. She stopped and leaned against a street light, trying to catch her breath. The streets were mostly empty, except a few passing cars driven by people that didn't care about her. Then she acted as she always did: impulsively. She ducked and rolled, slid off the curb and scrambled beneath a car. Footsteps thundered past her and no one stopped to look at her. She held her breath, counted to ten and then crawled out from under the car into the street. As she straightened up, a car slammed into her. She actually felt her feet lift off the ground as she went flying backwards. She hit the pavement and rolled onto her back.

"Oh my gosh! I… I didn't see her… I swear!" A woman's voice cried out. _Stay awake, stay awake!_ The girl ordered herself harshly. She was seventeen and she did not intend to meet her death via car. If she was going to die, she was going to go out fighting. She struggled to stay conscious, to keep her eyes open. It wasn't working.

"Call 911!" She heard. Then she passed out, her head lolling to the side and the word fading away.

* * *

Pepper Potts walked downstairs, staring down at the cell phone in her hands as if she was in shock.

"Tony…" Tony looked up from where he was fiddling with his Iron Man suit. It had been a couple of months since he fought Ivan Vanko, but he was still insisting on improving the armor.

"You have to come to the hospital with me, right now." Pepper told him.

"Why?"

"They need you to identify a Jane Doe."

"A what now?"

"It's a name used to identify an unknown woman!" Pepper was obviously irritated with him. "And according to the birth certificate they found in her backpack… she's your daughter."

* * *

**A/N This is a short chapter because I think of it as the prologue of sorts. Following chapters will be longer. **

**Thank you for reading. Please review. If you have constructive criticism involving anything in this story (in any chapters), feel free to say it but please refrain from being rude about it. **

**This is my first fanfiction involving Marvel characters or storylines so I'm not sure how good this story will be, but I have a plan for what's going to happen, so I won't be just throwing random things out there in each chapter. **

**Again, thank you for reading and please continue! **


	2. Kai

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* * *

Tony kept his head down as Pepper led him into the hospital. _This is impossible_! He tried to convince himself.

"Mr. Stark, Miss Potts." A doctor, a man in his mid thirties, greeted them outside a room. Pepper nodded curtly, but didn't say anything.

"That little girl… She's a fighter, that one. We're not sure what happened to her, but we found her with a lot of injuries. Here-." He handed Pepper a medical chart before continuing. "-She has a broken wrist, a stab wound to the shoulder, a concussion and two bruised ribs. The ribs are from the impact of the car hitting her, the driver of which called 911 immediately. The others… Well, your guess is as good as mine."

"_Little girl_? How old is she?" Tony demanded.

"That was just… Well, she's tiny. But from the birth certificate, it looks like she's seventeen. She hasn't regained consciousness since we found her, so we're going a lot of guesswork here." He explained.

"Can I see that birth certificate?" Pepper asked, handing the doctor the medical chart back. The doctor nodded.

"Of course; if you'd like to come in here…" He pushed open the door to the room and led them inside. The girl in question was lying on a hospital bed, unconscious and hooked up to an IV. Her right wrist was in a black cast, as expected, and she looked pretty banged up. She had dark brown hair, cut short and choppy around her shoulders, and a pale complexion. Tony stared at her for a minute as Pepper glanced over the birth certificate that the doctor had picked up from a nearby table.

"It doesn't look forged, just…"

"Battered?" The doctor suggested a word and Pepper nodded in reply. The certificate looked like it had been ripped up and taped back together, possibly more than once and had been crumpled up, folded and unfolded a lot to boot. Pepper could barely make out the words written on it.

"She was born on May 1st, 1994 at 12:12 A.M at Mid Coast hospital in Maine." Pepper read aloud to Tony.

"That's great and all, but what's her _name?_" Tony asked.

"Kai Alexia Grace."

"Kai? Isn't that a guy's name?" Pepper didn't answer; she was too busy staring at the certificate.

"Where are the rest of her belongings?"

"In here." The doctor went over to the small closet in the room and pulled out a backpack. Pepper saw Kai's clothes hanging up in the closet as well; they looked worn out and dirty. A lot of questions were rushing through Pepper's head and she glanced at Tony as the doctor handed her the backpack.

"I'll be nearby if you need me." The doctor hurried out of the room, leaving Pepper and Tony with the unconscious Kai.

"What are you thinking?" Pepper asked Tony.

"Well… If this was some kind of scam to get money out of me… Her mother would be here and she wouldn't be nearly dead and almost a legal adult…" Tony explained. He seemed to be shock, his humor momentarily gone.

"That's what I was thinking too. And where is her mother, I wonder? On the birth certificate it said her mother's name was Jane-Anne Grace. Ring a bell?"

"Yeah, I vaguely remember her… I met her in 1993… I think. Maybe it was already 1994…"

"It was 1993, Tony. She was born in May, 1994." Pepper told him.

"Right. Look, I was close to alcohol poisoning, I barely remember that night!" He complained, collapsing into a nearby chair.

"Well, remembering this girl's mother is a step in the right direction." Pepper muttered. Tony shot her a look; they both knew that his play-boy days were over, but he never expected it to come back to bite him in the butt. Pepper started digging through the girl's belongings, setting each object on the table by the door. There were several complete outfits rolled up tightly to save room. Once Pepper got through the clothes, she found more interesting objects. There were two paperback books, obviously well-read. Pepper flipped through one of them and saw that it was in another language. French, maybe? The second was in English and it looked like it was one of the Harry Potter books. There was also a well stocked medical kit and a small bag of toiletries. Pepper unzipped the second, smaller pocket. That seemed to be her food pocket. A bag of Doritos, a slightly crushed box of pop-tarts, granola bars, two bottles of Gatorade and a package of bubble gum.

"That girl knows how to eat healthy." Tony said sarcastically, watching what Pepper had pulled out of the pocket.

"It looks like she was running a lot, so why not have some comfort food?" Pepper asked absentmindedly, opening up the smallest pocket on the front. That was the pocket that seemed to hold what was most important to her. There was a wad of money, held together with a rubber band. Pepper had to wonder where she'd gotten it. Some of the bills were worn-out, having been crumpled up a lot, but others were crisp and new. Was she a pick-pocket? From the little Pepper knew about her, she had to assume that much. There was a map; folded up so many times it took a minute to unfold it to its full size. Tony came over to look over her shoulder as she looked at it.

"Why would she mark all these places?" Pepper asked. There were several places marked in France, then another couple red dots in Germany. In fact, most of the spots marked seemed to be in Europe. Then there was a line connected Europe to Maine. Dots were spread all over Maine and the surrounding states, even some across the Canadian border. The final one was in New York City. Pepper folded it up again the best she could and put it on the table.

"It looks like all the places she's been." Tony put in.

"She's seventeen, how could she have been in that many places unless…." Pepper trailed off, but the thought was clear: _unless she's been running for years_. She dug back into the pocket and pulled out the last of the girl's belongings. A Swiss army knife, with a lot of different blades and attachments, and a single photograph.

"Tony." Pepper showed it to him. It showed a much younger version of Kai, seven or eight, with her hair in pig tails, next to a blonde woman that seemed to be in her late twenties or early thirties.

"Is that Jane-Anne Grace?"

"I think so."

"You _think_ so?"

"I barely remember the woman, Pepper!" Tony defended himself.

"Well, I'd come up with something a little nicer to say for when that girl wakes up, Tony."


	3. Fighter

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* * *

Kai opened her eyes to stare at the blank white ceiling above her. She sat up in a jerky motion and looked around. Was she in a hospital, or some place much, much worse? An IV was attached to her arm and she pulled it out without flinching. Slipping out of bed, she went over to where her backpack was, the contents spilled out on a table. Kai pulled on a pair of jeans and a black tank top, throwing her hospital gown onto the bed behind her. Then she shoved everything on the table into her backpack in a hurry; she would sort through and organize it all again later. She had no clue where her shoes were, so she guessed she was going to have to go barefoot. It didn't matter either way to her; she just knew that she had to get out of this place. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she crept out of the hospital room. She had barely made it two steps out when a male doctor came running over to her.

"You can't be-!" She interrupted him with a kick to the stomach that sent him stumbling backwards. She grabbed him by the throat and pinned him against the wall.

"Where am I?"

"A hospital… in… New York." The doctor choked out. Two security guards rushed over to try and grab Kai. She whirled around at the sound of their approach, releasing the doctor, who collapsed on the floor. She gave the nearest one a round-house kick in the head. The second moved to grab her but she kicked him in the chest. She punched the first one as he recovered from her kick, with surprising force for her size. She kicked the second one in the back of the knee and sprinted away as they collapsed onto the floor. Rounding the corner, she took in several details at once: the security camera in the corner, which she immediately looked away from to avoid it seeing her face, the sign on the wall that pointed her towards the stairs and the guard coming straight at her. If two guards couldn't handle her, what was the point of sending one more? She slid on the slick floor and before the guard could react, she was behind him. He whirled around and she throat punched him so hard he hit the floor. She sprinted down the stairs, barged through the door that led out into the blinding sunlight and ran for the street. She could easily disappear into the crowd… Something large hit her and knocked her to the ground.

"Oh no, you don't! You aren't getting past Happy Hog-." He was interrupted by a punch to the face and then Kai was wrapping her legs around his throat to choke him. Pepper Potts ran out of the hospital out of them.

"Stop, stop! No one is going to hurt you!" Pepper cried.

"Excuse me if I don't believe you." Kai released the unconscious Happy and rolled away. She did a kick up, which got her from her back onto her feet in one fluid moment. Pepper blinked in surprise.

"Look, Kai-." Pepper started. In a split second, Kai had kicked her legs out from under her, grabbed her by the throat and pinned her to the concrete ground in the alleyway.

"How do you know my name?"

"I looked at your birth certificate!" Pepper said quickly. Kai released her and stepped back.

"I left for two minutes." Both women turned towards Tony Stark as he came to the doorway, holding Starbucks cups. Pepper glanced back at Kai, who just stared at him. Then Kai's eyes narrowed.

"_You're_ here." She growled.

"You know, normally, that's not how girls greet me."

"Normally, the girls you meet aren't your daughter. You looked at my birth certificate and you're here, so you must now that little factoid about me by now, right?" Kai shot back.

"I do, actually… What did you do to Happy?" Tony looked past her at his bodyguard, but Kai didn't answer. After a few seconds of silence, Pepper spoke.

"Why don't we get you back to your room and-."

"No. I'm not staying here and I would love to see you try and make me."

"No one is going to make you do anything."

"Then you won't mind if I leave." Kai started to walk away, but Pepper reached out to grab her wrist. Before Pepper even touched her, Kai grabbed her arm and pushed her up against the wall.

"Whoa, hey!" Tony started over to them, but Kai ignored him.

"Don't touch me!" Kai warned. Pepper nodded so Kai released her and stepped away. Tony relaxed slightly, but still looked ticked.

"You can run off to chase magical unicorns for all that I care, but first I need some answers." Tony told her.

"Yes. No. Dead. Because I'm just awesome like that."

"What?"

"You were going to ask, in order: are am I really your daughter, is this some kind of scam, where is my mother and, finally, how did you beat up four people effortlessly." She had a bored tone, like she was the smartest person in the alley and hated that everyone else were idiots. A Stark trait, no doubt about it…

"Wait… What do you mean your mom is dead?" Pepper put in.

"Bit the dust… Kicked the bucket… Cashed in her chips… I'm not sure how you can take that more than one way."

"When did she die?" Tony demanded.

"About a decade ago. Cancer sucks. And that is why this isn't a scam. If I was trying to scam you, then I would have run to my rich daddy for help ten years ago. Now can I leave, your highness?"

"Let's just let the doctors check you over, alright?" Pepper asked, holding up her hands as if in surrender.

"How about… no. I'm fine." She started to walk away, but Pepper held something up. A photograph, one that Kai recognized. Frowning, Kai slipped the backpack off her shoulders and unzipped it up. Everything was in a jumble in the main pocket, but she quickly did inventory.

"That's mine." She said quietly, looking up slowly, as if she was giving up.

"I know. I took it back to our place so I could run a facial recognition program, to confirm it was Jane-Anne Grace."

"It is." Kai said simply.

"I know that now; I was just making sure. Just let the doctors check you over and we can figure out what to do next, alright?" Pepper asked.

"Or I can take that, beat the crap out of both of you and disappear before you can even blink."

"If you were going to do that, you would have done it before now. We can offer you a place to stay." Pepper told her.

"We can?" Tony asked.

"_Yes. _We can." Pepper shot him a look and he quickly got the message, forcing a smile onto his face.

"I mean, _of course_ we can." Kai seemed to weigh her options, but then she strode forward, plucked the photograph from Pepper's hand and smirked.

"Well, since you asked so nicely." She folded up the picture and put it in her pocket before walking back into the hospital. Tony and Pepper glanced at the unconscious Happy.

"Eh, I'll send someone out to get him. Come on." They walked in after her.

* * *

The doctor, who was more than a little peeved by Kai's previous actions, announced that Kai had a high pain tolerance and, after prescribing some antibiotics and pain killers (if she needed them), left her in her room with Pepper and Tony.

"I'm going to go sign you out." Pepper then left the room. Tony sat in a chair near the door, not looking at her and not speaking.

"That disappointed that I'm your daughter, huh? Don't answer that. I really don't need to know what you're going to say."

"I'm trying to figure out what is up with you. You're not just a teen runaway like I thought. What really happened to you?"

"Nothing that's your business."

"If you're going to be living with me, it is my business."

"Why would I be living with you? As soon as Pepper gets these guys to check me out... I'm gone."

"Because you're not an adult, you don't have any other guardians and there's still a heck of a lot of questions I need answered."

"I'm touched by your concern." Pepper came back into the room.

"Alright. Let's go home."

"Unless you're taking me to France, I'm not going home. I'm going to _your_ home until I decide it's not worth the trouble. There's a difference." Tony didn't bother to point out that she was basically agreeing to coming with them, at least for a short time.

"France?" Pepper echoed.

"Go on, oh high and mighty Tony Stark, explain. Do you even remember my mother?" Kai demanded through clenched teeth.

"I remember the night I had with her, vaguely; the details are a little fuzzy." Tony shot back; he was tired and not in the mood for his daughter's antics. After some sleep, some coffee and maybe a couple days to adjust to this new information, he'd be back to his egotistic, annoying, sarcastic self. But now, he wasn't like that…

"She was an interpreter. That's why she was at that stupid little conference you were at for Stark Industries. You know the one where you met up with different countries to discuss your weapons? She spoke French and English and spent most of her time in France. She had a secondary home in America, in Maine, actually, but she rarely went there. Until I was seven, she would speak both French and English to me so that I became fluent in both. I still am fluent in both, by the way. She came to America to get cancer treatment, which obviously didn't work out as well as she hoped. She told me that you were my dad but after she died, I lived on the streets rather than go live with a man like you!" Kai explained. That was more words than they had gotten out of her… ever. Pepper just stared at the young girl as Tony started to avoid her eyes again.

"Well, you've been signed out, so why don't we go to… our home?" Pepper asked. Kai said nothing but she also didn't argue, so Pepper took that as a sign that she was in agreement.

* * *

While in New York, Pepper and Tony always stayed in Stark Towers. It was big, it was bold and it was impossible to miss.

"Lovely." Kai's sarcasm cut through the silence like a knife.

"What?" Pepper asked.

"Never mind." Kai muttered. She was already trying to come up with multiple escape routes from the building, just in case she needed to run again. The bottom levels were offices for all the workers, but the top five floors was a living space for Pepper and Tony. Luckily, they had thought to include a guest room just in case.

"How's this?" Pepper asked. Tony had already disappeared, but Pepper walked Kai up to her guest bedroom. It was plain, but big with a queen sized bed and private bathroom.

"It's fine. Thank you." Kai threw her backpack onto the bed.

"Alright… I'll be up on the next level if you need me." Kai didn't reply, so Pepper walked away.

* * *

Kai lied on her bed, staring at the ceiling. _You can't stay here. You have to keep moving_, she reminded herself. She was used to running; why was this time different? Because she was actually with her biological father? Because Pepper was being nice to her, despite the fact that Kai had almost killed her? Normally, that ruins a friendship. Apparently not with Pepper. Though, she lived with Tony Stark, so she had probably seen crazier things that a seventeen year old with the skills to kill. Kai rolled over onto her side, tucking her good arm underneath her head. _You have to keep moving…_


	4. Secrets Revealed

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* * *

Kai looked around the large clothing store as Pepper led her towards the teen section. It was the first time she'd actually been in a high end clothing store.

"Are you okay?" Pepper asked, turning back to look at her. Kai looked over at her and nodded.

"Yeah. Peachy."

"I was thinking we would start with the shoes and work our way up to the pants, dresses and shirts-."

"No dresses, please." She didn't like dresses or skirts; too hard to kick someone while wearing one. And, even if she could, she didn't want everyone seeing her underwear. She was an assassin on the run, but she had standards for herself.

"Alright, then." Pepper agreed.

"Why do you still like me?" Kai demanded.

"Because you're a seventeen year old girl that obviously has some major trust issues and a dark past that she doesn't want to go into. You're Tony's daughter. If he doesn't take care of you, then I will." Pepper explained.

"Great. I'm just some paperwork that's getting tossed around…"

"I didn't mean it like that." Pepper protested.

"No one ever does." They were silent for a minute, but then Pepper tried again.

"If you ever want to talk about what happened to you-."

"I don't."

"_If you do_… I'll be here." Kai glanced over at her, wondering if she was being sincere. She looked sincere. Kai looked away from her and towards a rack of clothing instead. Pepper followed her eyes.

"What do you like?" Kai seemed embarrassed and didn't answer.

"You said we should start with shoes, right? That's over here." She walked away. Pepper plucked what she knew Kai had been staring at off the rack. A light blue tunic shirt with an attached belt. Something that a runaway teen could never afford, something that would be easy to mess up when you were hanging up in back alleys all the time. Pepper smiled and put it over her arm before following Kai. As she caught up to the younger girl, she handed her the shirt.

"The dressing room's over there." Kai looked slightly surprised, but then she smiled and took the shirt from Pepper to go try it on.

* * *

After two weeks of being in Stark Tower, all the tabloids knew about Kai Grace, the long lost daughter of Tony Stark. And Kai hated that fact. How was she supposed to stay a secret, stay hidden, if everyone knew about her now? That's the only thing that was going through her head as she stared at the magazine sitting on her desk. _I am so dead_, she thought. Adrenaline racing through her, she jumped up from her seat and ran for her bed. Dropping to her knees, she grabbed the backpack from underneath it. It was the same one she'd been running with before, still packed with all the things she had had then. She slung it over one shoulder and headed for her door. Just then, Pepper walked in.

"Kai, I was thinking-." Pepper stopped mid-sentence as she saw that Kai had her backpack.

"What are you doing?" Kai thought the answer to that was pretty obvious.

"This was a mistake. I'm leaving." She tried to walk past Pepper, but Pepper side-stepped into her way.

"Pepper-." Kai started to warn.

"What happened? What suddenly changed your mind? TONY!" Pepper called over her shoulder.

"I'm not this girl! I don't go to family dinners or go shopping every day or do any of these things!" Tony, Pepper and Kai had engaged in some awkward family dinners of the past two weeks. Every time it ended halfway through with Pepper being called to a meeting and then Tony would escape to his workshop and Kai cleaned up afterwards, alone. Pepper took her shopping every day as a sort of bonding experience, which was more than Tony ever attempted to do. Kai looked down at the outfit she was wearing. Grey skinny jeans with the same blue tunic shirt she'd gotten on their first shopping trip, matched with new converses. This wasn't her. And she was in serious danger. She started to walk past Pepper, but then Tony came in, having heard Pepper's yell.

"What is going on?" He demanded.

"I'm leaving. Thanks for… I'm gone." Kai walked past him and got to the hallway before a loud alarm went off all over the building.

"What is that?" Kai asked, turning back to Tony. He was already on his tablet and he turned the screen towards her. Pepper walked to stand beside her to see the screen as well. A dozen men in black Kevlar suits and black helmets were walking into the building. In the background, it showed two guards on the floor, dead. Pepper let out a shriek and clamped her hand over her mouth.

"Who are those guys?" She asked in a quiet voice. Kai was already reacting; she grabbed Tony and Pepper's arms and pulled them to the floor.

"Into the kitchen, go." They obeyed. Kai turned over a metal table onto its side so it was facing the door and the three of them huddled behind it.

"I'll get to my Iron Man armor and-."

"Fine, fine, you want to play hero? Go for it. But these guys aren't coming for you, or for Pepper, or anyone else. They want me."

"Why?" Pepper demanded.

"Because I ran away from them!"

"Those… those are the people you were running from?" Tony asked.

"People that work in the same organization at least." Kai admitted.

"What organization? What did you do in that organization?" Pepper asked.

"You don't want to know."

"Yes, I do!" She reached out to grab Kai's arm and Kai snapped, jumping to her feet and looking down at Pepper.

"I was an assassin! I spent my childhood, from the time I was eight to the time I was fourteen, as an assassin! Is that what you wanted to hear? That the girl you think is just a poor, put-upon runaway is an assassin?!" Kai yelled. A man in Kevlar walked in and raised his gun, but Kai was faster. She kicked the table as hard as she could it and it went screeching across the floor, slamming into the man's legs. Kai grabbed a knife and threw it and it found the man's only unprotected area: his neck. As he hit the floor, Kai was moving. She jumped over the table and went into the hallway. No one else was there, but it was only a matter of time. _One down, eleven to go_, she thought.

"Kai!" Pepper and Tony stumbled out of the kitchen and stared at her in shock. She glanced back at them.

"You want to get your suit? Go get it." Tony didn't need to be told twice; he ran for the next floor to get his suit. Pepper looked between Tony's retreating figure and Kai.

"Go with him. I got this." Pepper ran off. Kai went to the top of the staircase and looked down. Another one was starting to come off the stairs. She swung herself over the railing and landed on the man's back. She snapped his neck and was sprinting down the stairs in the next second. Another man coming up the stairs… She was on him a second, knocking his gun out his hands. Kai jumped up from the stairs and flipped up, kicking him in the face. He went down and she grabbed his knife from his belt. She stabbed him in the chest, through his Kevlar.

"_Hey, kiddo! How ya doing?_" Tony's voice came over the intercom. Kai was just starting to wonder how the heck he was going to hear her if she answered when he came half flying-half tumbling down the stairs in his Iron Man suit.

"Three down. That means nine more to go." She reported. His helmet slid up to reveal his face.

"On it!" His helmet slid down again and she barely got out of the way before he was flying-tumbling down the stairs. She ran down after him. By the time she got to the next hallway, six more guys were down. _Three more_, she thought to herself.

"_Two more down!_" Tony announced through the intercom, sounding a little too smug for Kai's taste. _One more to go_, it seemed simple to her. Then someone slammed into her and knocked her into the next room. She had gotten down onto a level that held a conference room and she was in it now. The man she was fighting was the leader of the group and he wasn't looking so amused with her for taking out all his men with IronMan.

"Hey." She greeted him, scrambling to her feet. He punched at her and she ducked the blow, kicked at his stomach and he caught her ankle. He threw her up and she did an unintended flip before she hit the floor. She tasted blood in her mouth but that did faze her. She rolled onto her back to avoid getting kicked in the face. She flipped up onto her feet and swung her leg around, kicking a chair at the man. He caught it and threw it at her. She ducked and it went crashing through the window.

"You'd better hope there were no pedestrians down there!" Kai told him. He punched at her with one arm and she went to the side to avoid it. Expecting that, he grabbed her by the hair and threw her onto the conference table. She kept sliding and went over the other side. She hit the floor and crawled underneath.

"You want to play hide and seek? Fine by me!" The agent jumped on top of the table and starting shooting into the table. Kai rolled out of the way of the bullets and he kept shooting at her. She went over the side of the building, through the broken window. She grabbed the ledge and kicked through the window below her and let her momentum carry her into the next floor. Kai hit the floor along with glass shards that cut into her arms and face. She scrambled to her feet and looked around. She was in a kitchen for the workers. She kicked small table nearby and one of the legs broke off. She grabbed it and ran for the door. She heard footsteps approaching hurriedly. She swung out with the table leg and barely stopped before she would have hit Pepper's face.

"Jeez!" Pepper cried. Kai grabbed her arm and pulled her into the room. Glancing back into the hallway, she could see the leader of the group approaching.

"_Pepper? Kai?_" Tony's voice came over the intercom and they could hear him going through the level below them, looking for them. Pepper started to call out but Kai clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Don't." She whispered. Pepper nodded with her eyes wide. Kai swung out with the table leg and caught the man in the face. She grabbed him by the back of the neck and threw him into the room. She kicked him in the face for good measure; he got up and grabbed her by the arms. He shoved her back, hard, and she hit the counter. She was vaguely aware of pain in her bruised ribs, but she ignored it. She couldn't think about that right now; she had been trained not to. She picked up a coffee mug from the counter and slammed it into his face so that the glass shattered. Just then, Tony came crashing through the ceiling and into the room. He looked over at them and raised a hand.

"Mind if I drop in?" Kai kicked the agent in the back and he went stumbling forward. Tony fired his hand canon and the man went flying back into the fridge. He moaned but didn't get up. Tony strode forward.

"Now, who do you work for?" But foam spilled out of the man's mouth and he collapsed into a heap.

"Cyanide." Kai said simply, as if she had expected it.

"Who did he work for? What organization?" Pepper demanded.

"Not important." Kai cocked her head to the side, listening to something, before she spoke again:

"Sirens. The police have arrived. So they aren't dead, just really dang late to the party…."

* * *

**A/N Okay, so the fight scene in that chapter wasn't the best; I'll try to write better ones in the future. If you have any comments on how I can do that, feel free to drop a review in. Even if you don't, I'd love to have some feedback on the story in general!**


	5. Gone Again

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* * *

Pepper and Tony gave their report to the police. They both kept looking around for Kai, but she hadn't shown her face again since she'd disappeared into her bedroom after the fight. The bodies had been hauled away; there were no signs to indict who or what they were working for. Pepper glanced around once more and caught sight of Kai, finally. But Pepper didn't call out because she knew what Kai was doing. The sight of her was enough to tell the story: Kai was wearing dark jeans, combat boots and a black hoodie with the hood up. Her backpack was on her shoulder. Kai caught Pepper's eye and then walked off, disappearing into the shadows of the night in seconds.

* * *

Pepper and Tony went into Kai's bedroom and looked around. The bed was made, everything was neat and tidy. Pepper collapsed onto the bed.

"She's gone. Two weeks was too much for her, apparently." Tony picked up a note from the desk and flipped it over to read.

**_You saw what happened tonight. I can't stay here. Thanks for the help and everything, but I have to go. _**

**_-Kai _**

"Oh yeah, she's gone." Tony put the note back down on the desk.

"Are you actually upset?" Pepper asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity. But Tony was already walking away.

* * *

_Fourteen year old Kai ran through the streets of a city in Germany. She didn't even know where she was anymore. She stopped on the edge of a river. She didn't cry and she didn't show emotion. She still had her training and that was what she was going to use against them to survive. Kai plucked the pin off her jacket and threw it into the river. _

_"Hail Hydra my butt…" She spoke in English, something she hadn't done in a while. She was used to speaking French and German. The sound of her own voice speaking English surprised her. Then she turned and looked around. No one was paying her any attention. She pulled up her hood and walked away from the river, letting her Hydra pin sink to the bottom… _

* * *

Kai didn't even know where she was anymore; that was how she worked. If she didn't know where she was, how would Hydra? She had taken off her cast, even if her broken wrist was totally healed yet. She didn't care; if she did this right, she wouldn't be fighting for a couple more weeks. A car pulled up beside her and she whirled around towards it, ready for a fight, even if it was unexpected. The door opened and a man looked at her with a smile. He didn't seem like he was Hydra, but then again the devil never actually appears to you as the devil: he appears as a smiling man offering you everything you've ever wanted.

"Hi! I'm Phil Coulson. You're Kai, right?"

"Maybe…" She admitted, weary of him.

"I was going to offer you a place in SHIELD."

"In a shield?" Kai asked, confused.

"SHIELD, all caps. It stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. We protect people…and you seem to be doing a pretty good job of that from what I heard happened at Stark Towers." Kai was officially done with this conversation; she folded her arms across her chest and stared hard at Coulson.

"Well, that sounds fun and all… but it doesn't and I don't want to hear about it. I don't protect people; I put them in danger and then I fix the problem. That's it. Bye now." She started to walk away but a glance over her shoulder told her that Coulson had gotten out and was following her. She stopped and turned back to him, annoyed and very close to falling off the edge of 'calm' and into the pit of 'you are going to die'.

"Look, you could be a field agent; you could do exactly what you were doing back there: fight the bad guys."

"Do you even know who those guys were?" _Not that I would tell you_, she thought. Hydra was her secret; anyone that knew about it was in even more danger than her. She was a loose end, something they wanted to cut off, but telling someone else about that secret organization… She might as well write their suicide note for them.

"No, but we were hoping you could help us with that? A gang? A mob?"

"German gang. Ran into them a few years back, couldn't shake them." Kai lied smoothly, staring at her feet as if she was admitting the truth and felt guilty about it.

"Well, with your skills… We'd like to take you in." _Heard that before_, she thought. Her instincts were telling her not to trust this. But this wasn't Hydra; if it was, they would have killed her in a drive-by shooting, not try and talk to her. And hiding from a secret organization in another… Suddenly, it didn't sound so bad. She plastered a smile onto her face.

"And what do I get out of it? I mean, you get a good agent… what do I get?"

"Training, a place to stay, food, money…" Coulson trailed off; he knew that he had her attention. Kai gave him a dazzling smile, something only a Stark could pull off.

"Where do I sign up?"

* * *

**A/N Kai's past with Hydra and what happened that made her run from them is something that I'll go into in detail, but not for a while. Right now she has to deal with being a SHIELD agent and part of the Avengers. ****I have it planned out what happened and, as long as I can write it well so it reads as good as it sounds in my head, I really think that its a good idea, in my opinion at least. **

**As always, reviews are welcome. I have a couple more chapters written out and will continue writing, so I'll try my best to update regularly. **


	6. Supervising Officer

.

* * *

"You know, I know how to hit someone already. I do it all the time." Kai gave her SO the same dazzling smile she'd given Coulson; one that only members of her family could pull off.

"I know. What I have to teach you is control."

"Control?" Kai echoed.

"Yes. When to stop hitting someone. When you're in the field, sometimes you don't fight, you talk your way out of the situation at hand. You don't seem to be able to do that, Grace."

"Don't call me that."

"It's your last name… Agents normally refer to other agents by their last names." He pointed out.

"I know, but I don't like being called 'Grace'. Kai Grace. Awesome name. But just Grace? No. The meaning of Grace is 'simple elegance' or finesse. I got finesse, just not the kind you want, Clint." She knew she was going into a monologue but it was a nice distraction from the pointless training she was receiving. Clint Barton rolled his eyes and stood up from where he was perched on the bottom of the stairs. Kai gave one more half-hearted open-palmed hit to the battered punching bag before turning to him as he approached.

"Fine, _Kai_… before I take you out on the field, I have to know that you aren't going to just kill everyone in the area."

"I'd settle for maiming or seriously injuring." Kai pretended to look thoughtful and Clint shot her a look. Her smile immediately faded.

"Sorry…" Great, now she felt like a little kid again. Like when she was a girl in Hydra that was the head of the class, the perfect girl that everyone thought would go far…. Except she wasn't the head of the class anymore; she was the girl that no one expected to go far. She was failing miserably and that made her feel even worse. Clint saw the look on her face.

"Come here." He took her by the arm and led her over to the boxing ring. They were training in an old gym, not like normal agents did. Normal agents trained in high security SHIELD facilities. Coulson had said that he had experience with another girl that had a similar past to her. Kai wasn't sure how someone else could _have_ a similar past to her, but she hadn't protested when they put her with Clint. She didn't want to cause _too_ much trouble, just a healthy amount, because if she caused too much trouble then they were going to decide she wasn't worth it. The last thing she needed was her face in another secret organization records but still out on the street.

"What, are we going to dance?" She teased.

"You hitting a punching bag and me calling it teaching you control isn't going to work. Let's really see what you can do."

"You don't want to fight me." Kai warned seriously.

"I'll take my chances."

"You really don't want to…"

"You won't hurt me." Clint assured her. _Don't be too sure about that,_ she thought wearily. But she nodded anyway and decided to use her sense of humor as a distraction, as usual.

"Sparing with me…. You are a brave man, Clint Barton."

"So I've been told." And then they were at it. Kai blocked a punch and tried to twist his arm around, but Clint grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back instead. He pinned her against the side of the ring.

"So what organization were you in?" He asked. Kai threw her leg back, wrapped it around his and threw her head back into his face. He stumbled back, fell over her leg and hit the floor, pulling her with him. She rolled off him and got into a kneeling position before he could grab her and, in the next second, was raising her fist for a throat punch. He grabbed her wrist and used that leverage to toss her to the floor. Pain erupted in her wrist, the wrist that had been broken three weeks ago. She fought off the pain and forced herself to her feet.

"Are you alright?" Clint asked, concern starting to creep into his voice.

"Peachy." She hissed, leaning against the cords around the ring. He started towards her and she tensed. He held up his hands.

"Whoa, calm down. We're done. What happened to your wrist?"

"Well, I broke it three weeks ago, so that fight didn't do too much for it." She admitted, trying to shrugging it off. Clint glared at her.

"You should have told me about that."

"But that would take the fun out of it." She pretended to be disappointed that he'd found out. He pulled aside the cords so that she could slip out of the ring.

"I'm going to take you to the hospital so they can put that back in a cast."

"If people see me with a broken wrist, they'll think I'm weak."

"Trust me, you're not." He assured her.

"But they'll _assume_. I don't like people assuming things about me."

"You're not a people person, are you, Kai?"

"Nonsense. I love people. They just don't love me."

* * *

Two hours later, Clint was driving Kai back to her apartment. How SHIELD had gotten her an apartment in Massachusetts in her name when she was only seventeen, who knew? But she was glad for it. Her wrist was back in a brace and the doctors warned that they would have to put pins in it if she messed it up anymore. Which meant no more sparing until the doctors gave the okay.

"You never answered my question." Clint noted.

"What question?"

"What organization were you in?"

"You don't want to know, trust me."

"You don't trust people easily, do you?"

"No."

"And there's no sugarcoating with you either…" Clint said, shaking his head slightly. He pulled up outside her apartment building.

"You want sugarcoating, go to bakery." Kai told him, rolling her eyes. She opened her car door and slid out, shutting it behind her. Clint followed her to walk her into the building. She resisted the urge to remind him that she could handle herself if something happened.

"That move back at the gym, when I had you pinned, that was good."

"It was instinct, not really a 'move', Clint." She told him, shrugging, as he pulled open the door for her.

"Then you have good instinct." He amended as they walked in.

"Hhmm."

"You don't take compliments well either."

"I don't take a lot of things well; you should know that by now."

"I'd guessed that much."

"So do I get some super spy name or what?" Kai changed the subject away from her; she felt that had talked about her way too much for one night.

"It's called an alias." Clint corrected her. They had reached her second floor apartment and she paused by her front door.

"You mean codename. What's yours?" Kai asked, smiling over at him innocently.

"Hawkeye."

"Which means I am officially calling you Bird-Boy now." She told him, laughing. He nodded as if he'd been expecting that.

"Seriously, though, do I get to pick one out for me or is it assigned or-?"

"Go to bed." He turned to walk away.

"You didn't answer my question!"

"You don't answer any of mine!" He returned, calling it over his shoulder. She was sure that the neighbors loved them right about now. Not. She rolled her eyes and slipped into her apartment.


	7. New Mission

.

* * *

Kai crouched down next to the 0-8-4 (an object of unknown origin that may or may not pose a threat) and studied it. After training with Clint for two months, they decided to let her go out onto the field. Or, as close to the field as they trusted her to get: guard a 0-8-4, should anything actually happen, under the close eye of Clint, Coulson and a couple dozen other SHIELD agents. The amount of trust was astounding. Not. The 0-8-4 was a hammer, a hammer that no one seemed to be able to move. She reached towards it, but Clint was watching her.

"Don't touch it."

"Why not? If no one else can even move it, I doubt I'm going to break it." Kai complained, straightening up.

"Not the point." He told her. She rolled her eyes and let Clint lead her from the make-shift room. The entire 'base' built around it was a fancy tent, to be honest. No one looked at her like people normally did: as a runaway that no one wanted to deal with. They all saw her and glanced back to what they were doing: she was just another SHIELD agent in a SHIELD base. She wore half the SHIELD uniform; the pants and the boots but she matched that with her own 'Born to Run' t-shirt. Her wrist was out of the cast and it had healed properly once she stopped sparing with Clint. Her hair had grown out long enough for her to pull it into a ponytail, which she did just to keep it out of her face. She hadn't had contact with Pepper or Tony since she'd left. They didn't even know she was in SHIELD. Well, that's the way it had to be. She couldn't have too many people knowing too many of her secrets, now could she? Clint had led her out of the make-shift SHIELD facility.

"I thought being a field agent was going to be more fun."

"Being an agent isn't about having fun."

"I know, I know. With great power comes no fun. We're in New Mexico. Isn't there something to do here? It's my birthday." Kai complained.

"No it is _not!_" Clint protested.

"You're right; it was two days ago. It's May 3rd." Kai informed him.

"Play nice, we'll do something later." Clint reluctantly agreed.

"Are you saying that just to shut me up?"

"Yes."

"Well, it didn't work. I'm eighteen now, this is a major birthday for me." Kai told him. Clint notched an arrow into his bow and pulled back the string. Kai reached down and grabbed a knife from her boot. Clint glanced at her. She nodded. He shot the arrow and she threw the knife. It completely missed the arrow and both weapons buried themselves into the sand. Kai went to retrieve both of them. She handed the arrow back to Clint and they were about to try again, because she was so sure that she _could_ hit the arrow in mid-air with her knife, when they heard a yell from inside the base.

"Well, that doesn't sound good." Kai noted. The radios crackled in their ears. Kai grimaced; she hated the tiny radio in her ear, it was annoying.

"_We need eyes up high._" Coulson knew who he wanted and both Kai and Clint knew it too. Clint grabbed the arrow from Kai's hand and then ran off. She watched as Clint threw himself into the bucket of a crane.

"_Barton, talk to me_."

"_Want me to slow him down, sir?_ _Or are you sending him more guys to beat up_?" Barton asked. Kai smiled; the sass was strong with that one.

"_I'll let you know_." Kai tapped the radio in her ear.

"I could-."

"_Stand down, Agent Grace_." Coulson ordered. Kai grimaced. So what was she supposed to do? Stand out here in the rain and be miserable? Apparently. She crept forward and ducked behind a stationary truck to look into the tent-base. She could see the shadow of a man moving fast through the base. Then another shadow met his and the two men went rolling out through the side of the base into the mud.

"Are you just going to let him do this? Is there some plan I should know about?" Kai asked into her radio, watching mud-wrestling.

"_Just stand down, Agent._" Coulson told her firmly.

"_You'd better call it, Coulson, because I'm starting to root for this guy._" Barton warned. Kai couldn't take it anymore; she ran forward and slid in the mud, ending up in front of the blonde guy.

"Hi there!"

"Step aside, child, I am Thor, son of Odin!" He warned.

"Maybe you'd better step aside, Blondie, because I'm Kai, daughter of… Jane-Anne." She realized just how unimpressive that was, but there wasn't really time to discuss it. Thor swung at her. She dodged, kicked him in the ribs and then danced away, as light on her feet as ever. She went forward for another punch, but Thor grabbed her and threw her into the base. She landed on her back, hard.

"_Merde_." She said 'crap' in a language know for making everything sound elegant. And, she had to admit, it sounded more elegant in French than it did in English…

"_Kai… Whatcha doing?_" Clint's voice came in her ear. Was that concern in his voice? No; more like annoyance and confusion.

"Handling the situation. Gonna have to call you back." She scrambled to her feet as Thor walked into the base after her. They resumed their fight, neither one of them missing a beat. The problem was she was used to fighting like she was stronger than her opponent. She fought like a muscular man rather than the petite girl she was. And that just didn't work when fighting Thor. A punch to the stomach sent her to the ground and she struggled to get back up. Thor was done with her; he walked over to the hammer. She slid the knife out of her belt.

"_Wait! Stand down, Agent Grace. I want to see this!_" Coulson ordered her. She hesitated, the knife raised to throw. Then she dropped it into the mud.

"_Good girl. Kind of._" Clint amended her. Kai watched as Thor tried to pull his hammer out, but it didn't work. After trying for a while, he gave up and collapsed in the mud on his knees, his face screwed up to frustration and sadness.

"_Okay, show's over. Ground units move it_." Coulson ordered. The ground units surrounded Thor with guns pointed at him and the next thing that Kai knew: she was getting pulled to her feet by none other than Clint.

"You disobeyed an order." He hissed as he pulled her out of the base and into the rain again.

"But I obeyed the second one." She pointed out, trying to give him that Stark smile that won everyone over. It didn't work. Clint tightened his grip on her arm and pulled her away from the scene. She grimaced. _Well, at least it's not my worst birthday. Though this is on the list for sure_…


	8. Not the Agent

.

* * *

Kai was flown back to New York after her little show in New Mexico. There was a large SHIELD base there and they were waiting to talk to her. After nearly a day on a plane and then a long hot shower to get the remnants of mud off her, she was practically dumped into the lap of Maria Hill.

"You disobeyed a direct order."

"Is this all you have to deal with, Maria? Naughty agents? Because that's pretty-." Kai started.

"That's _Agent Hill_ to you and I deal with the trouble makers." Agent Hill growled at her, leaning on the table. Kai felt like she was in an interrogation room…and she was probably was.

"I'm shaking." Kai told her sarcastically.

"I would show a bit more respect considering the trouble you're in-."

"I disobeyed _one order_! Come on! You must have bigger problems than me." Kai complained.

"_Respect_, Agent Grace. Learn the meaning of the word. And with new, cocky agents like you, disobeying one order snowballs into a lot more." Agent Hill told her.

"I have a feeling this isn't just about New Mexico." Kai told her. Agent Hill slapped a file down on the table in front of her.

"You're right. It's not. You don't crack under pressure do you?" She asked. Kai smirked proudly.

"Can't say I do."

"Let's see how you react to this… We thought you were just some runaway teen that got involved in things she shouldn't have. And, to a point, that's true. But you've been hiding something, Agent Grace." Agent Hill motioned towards the file and Kai hesitantly reached to open it. _They can't know… Not the whole story_, she assured herself. But as she opened the file, her heart jumped into her throat.

"Nervous, Agent Grace?" Kai didn't answer. Agent Hill grabbed the file and looked it over again for herself. She picked out one paper from it and slapped it down in front of Kai. For the first time in a long time, Kai flinched like she'd been slapped.

"You were behind the assassination of _three_ German government officials!" Another paper was put in front over and then another. Kai squeezed her eyes shut to avoid looking at the pictures.

"I don't know what sick organization used a child to do these… But you gave your birthday as May 1st, 1993, correct?" Kai managed to nod.

"That means you were nine… eleven…thirteen for these."

"Agent Hill-." Kai started.

"And then, we have you going from an assassin to a lowly pick-pocket by the time you were fourteen. All over Europe… Maine… Canada… New York." Agent Hill put more papers, papers that showed pictures of _her_, in front of her.

"Agent-."

"Is this some scam, some game to you? Because if you're a spy then you've become a much bigger problem. And you won't like our solution to spies."

"No! I'm not!" Kai's voice rose to a yell without her permission and Agent Hill raised an eyebrow at her.

"Not anymore…" Kai amended her statement.

"Then what are you doing here? An assassin, a pick-pocket, a SHIELD agent… what's the point? Who are you running from?" Agent Hill demanded.

"I can't say."

"_Can't_? Or won't?" Kai didn't answer. _If anyone knows, they're dead…and so am I, _she reminded herself harshly. Hydra was coming after her, sure, but if she told anyone, let alone one of the top agents of a secret organization with the man-power to pack a punch in Hydra's defenses… She would be dead by morning.

"Agent Grace, I need an answer." Agent Hill commanded. Kai didn't answer. Agent Hill sighed and leaned across the table. Kai raised her eyes, daring to meet Agent Hill's.

"You're eighteen… You were seventeen when you started here. I really don't want to have to be hard on you, but… I really need an answer. Director Fury has taken this case upon himself. That's not a good thing, not for you."

"I… I can't tell you… _Can't_." Agent Hill sighed again; that was obviously not the answer she had wanted.

"You're a national security threat-."

"No, no! I'm not, I swear!" Kai cried, her head snapping up Agent Hill's words. She swallowed hard.

"I haven't done… _that_-." She motioned towards the pictures in front of her. "-in years and I won't again, I swear! I won't!" She was near tears now and Agent Hill looked away. Kai put her head in her hands. _They weren't supposed to find out_.

"And am I supposed to just take your word on that, Agent Grace? An assassin, a thief's word on that?"

"Yes. No… No… I… I won't, you have to believe me." Kai sputtered.

"You are not the agent we thought you were… First off, give me your badge." Agent Hill held out her hand. Kai, very slowly, drew her badge out of her jacket pocket. Agent Hill took it out of her hand and dropped it onto the other side of the table.

"You are not longer an agent of SHIELD, effective immediately. Secondly, we've talked it over with our superiors… You've got to give us some information if you want to save yourself."

"I can't."

"What organization did you work for? Why did you do these killings? Why were you so young when you did it? Are you still working for them-?"

"No! I'm not still working for them!" Kai yelled.

"Give us something else, something useful."

"It was an organization that brought kids in… They thought that the earlier they were trained, the better they would be. They took me and a dozen other children and trained us to be assassins… I… I did it because they gave me a place to stay, because…because they were so manipulative. I swear, I didn't even know what I was doing half of the time!"

"Were those 'half of the time'?" Agent Hill pointed to the pictures in front of Kai. Kai closed her eyes again.

"Are you trying to tell me you didn't know what you were doing then?!"

"No, I… I… I…." Kai trailed off and buried her face in her hands instead. Agent Hill snatched up the pictures and shoved them back into the folder before shutting it. Kai slowly looked up again. Agent Hill looked at her and then looked away. How could she have reverted to a scared child so quickly? Kai's legs were pulled up onto the chair, her knees against her chest, and she wouldn't meet Agent Hill's eyes.

"Agent G-… _Miss_ Grace, we need more information than that."

"I can't. I didn't know the name of the organization. They never told me." Kai lied. _How can they still have this hold over me? If I told them about Hydra, they would protect me… Why can't I give them information_? Kai asked herself. But she knew why. _Because I'm scared of Hydra_. They were the only thing she ever feared anymore. They had a hold on her that she couldn't shake.

"Give us a location of a base. Something. _Anything_!"

"They never let me see where we were. I was blindfolded until we got to the place!" Kai cried. It wasn't a lie; she didn't know where the base was… not until she escaped it.

"What about the other children? You said there were more."

"I said they recruited more. I didn't say they survived." Kai told her coldly. Agent Hill looked at her, waiting. Kai cracked.

"They killed them, okay?! They thought that having children was too risky… They would reveal the organization if they lived! They got scared of something! I don't know what! They killed the rest of them!"

"And I'm supposed to believe that _you_ only escaped and survived? Really, Miss Grace?" Agent Hill asked.

"I did!"

"Miss Grace-."

"I did! I did, Agent Hill! Someone helped me, someone on the inside."

"Who? Give us a name; give us a lead to follow!"

"I don't know his name!"

"You're telling me you don't know anything about the organization you spent six years in?"

"I don't!" Kai cried. Agent Hill was silent for a minute.

"You ever go knew any government official again… SHIELD will take you out, no matter your intentions. You don't know SHIELD's secrets and that is the one reason why you are walking away right now. If you go to Germany again-."

"SHIELD will take me out?" Kai asked quietly.

"You're catching on. Anything suspicious… SHIELD takes you out of the equation. You're lucky you're getting out at all. Agent Barton, Agent Coulson and I worked hard to get that much for you."

"Clint knows?" Kai asked.

"Yes." _Well. Another friendship ruined_, she thought bitterly.

"Get out, Miss Grace."

"Yes, Agent Hill." Kai nearly jumped out of her chair and sprinted out of the room, leaving SHIELD behind her…


	9. One Last Rodeo

.

* * *

Kai leaned heavily against the railing. She was on the second floor of the SHIELD building. How long had she been standing there? A few minutes? Half an hour? She didn't even know anymore.

"Agent Grace." She turned towards Coulson.

"It's just Kai. No more badge… Not an agent. But you should know that." She told him. He nodded once.

"How'd New Mexico turn out?" She asked.

"Weird." He replied. She decided not to ask him to expand on that and he didn't offer any more information.

"Just got back, actually."

"Did you leave just after I did?"

"No. But I took a jet, you took a commercial flight, so…"

"So no one likes me?" Coulson didn't answer that, but the 'no' rang louder than any words.

"Washed out of SHIELD in two months… New record on the fail-o-meter." Kai muttered.

"Two and a half, technically." Coulson corrected her, shrugging. She could tell that he was trying to make her feel better and she appreciated the effort, but it wasn't really working.

"Well, it was nice to be here and all, but I was told to get out, so… Bye." She started to walk off when an alarm rang throughout the building. She stopped and looked back at Coulson.

"Was that because I didn't leave fast enough for their taste, because, if so, that's a little harsh?" She asked.

"No, that's something else..." Coulson looked down at the first level and Kai looked too, out of curiosity. A blonde haired man was sprinting for the exit. Kai glanced at Coulson, waiting. He caught her eyes.

"One last rodeo shouldn't piss Agent Hill off too much… Just don't hurt him; he's an asset." Coulson told her. Now _that _made her feel better! Kai ran past him, towards the opposite direction of the stairs. Then, praying she'd timed it right, she leapt over the railing and hurtled towards the floor. She hit the asset instead and they both hit the floor. He broke her fall, but they both groaned.

"So, I was hoping we could just-." But the man was already up and running towards the exit again.

"Or not!" She got up and sprinted after him. She caught up, tackled him again and stopped him a foot away from the door. He struggled to get towards the door and she jumped on his back again, trying to pin him to the floor.

"_Merde!_ Can you stop for two seconds?!" He did the equivalent of a push-up with her on his back and rolled over. She landed on the floor and he rolled off her to avoid crushing her.

"Okay, I'm impressed." Kai admitted.

"Who are you?"

"Kai Grace. Former agent of SHIELD. Also known as the girl who really tired of getting beaten up by hot blonde dudes…" She trailed off as he grabbed her by the arms and lifted her off the floor, putting her on her feet again.

"Where am I?"

"Uh… New York." He ran out the front door and Kai took off after him.

* * *

After a block of running, it seemed to sink in what he was seeing, because the blonde guy stopped and stared at the city around him.

"Are you done _now_?" Kai demanded, catching up with him. Black vans surrounded them and Kai grimaced.

"I am so going to be taken out..." _They probably think I'm helping him escape or something_, she thought. He glanced at her, confused. She just shook his head. He didn't need to her story, not now.

"At ease, soldier." Director Nick Fury stepped out of one of the vans and Kai looked away from him. _Don't cause trouble. You're just here for… moral support. You're morally supporting a random blonde dude who appears to be a soldier of some sorts_, she reminded herself.

"Look, I'm sorry about that little show back there, but... We thought it best to break it to you slowly."

"Break what?"

"You've been asleep, Cap… For almost seventy years." Kai glanced back at the blonde guy and saw he was breathing a little heavy.

"Are you gonna be okay?" She asked. _It would be just like SHIELD to blame him hyperventilating on me!_ She thought at the same time.

"Yeah… It's just… I had a date." As he looked around in shock, Director Fury turned to Kai.

"We'll handle it from here. You know you're no longer an agent." Why didn't he tell her to 'get out' just like Agent Hill had? It seemed like he wanted to make her squirm first. She thought back to what Coulson had said.

"One last rodeo…. Come on, Director, I didn't hurt anyone." She pointed to the blonde man for emphasis; he was perfectly fine.

"We'll handle it from here." He repeated. She realized _that_ was his way of saying 'get out'. She nodded once.

"Alright, I get it. Can I grab my things from the building?" She'd left them, at Agent Hill's insistence, in one of the locker rooms. Apparently having an assassin with weapons when you're entire job is to try and make her snap was a bad idea. Fury nodded. Kai started to walk away.

"Captain Rogers, if you'd come with us-."

"Back there? They want to kill me."

"They don't." Fury assured him. Kai stopped and turned around.

"If it helps any, they'll hate me worse. I'll be their main concern."

"Miss Grace." The warning in Fury's voice was clear. Captain Rogers looked between them.

"Yeah, fine." He was still distracted by the sights around him, the information they'd given him, but now he was on edge to boot. _Probably doesn't see how one teenager girl can piss off so many people. Poor guy_, Kai thought to herself. She was sure he would be warned about her later. Could she have _one_ friendship that was ruined by… well, her own stupidity regarding things in the past? No, that was too much to ask, apparently.

* * *

Kai was allowed to keep her backpack and her clothes, but anything that could even been used as a weapon was confiscated. She resisted the urge to tell them that, if she really wanted to kill someone, she wouldn't need a weapon. She figured that was the sort of thing that would get her locked up. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she walked towards the exit, ignoring the looks she got from the SHIELD agents that passed her. Steve Rogers (that much information was gleaned from Coulson; he couldn't stop talking about the guy as he'd taken away her weapons and wished her luck in the outside world) was sitting in one of the chairs by the door, looking dejected. Kai had her hand on the door to push it open when she finally stopped. She let her hand fall, rolled her eyes at herself and then turned back to Steve.

"Mind if I join you?" Steve looked up, surprised, but nodded quickly. She flopped down in the chair next to him, letting her backpack slide down her arm and rest on the other seat.

"So… All of this must be weird for you." She noted.

"Yeah." He agreed, staring at his hands.

"I'm not helping, am I?"

"Not really."

"Never let it be said that I didn't try, though." Kai stood up, readjusting her backpack on her shoulders.

"Wait, uh…" Steve trailed off.

"Kai Grace." She supplied.

"Steve Rogers." He held out a hand and she shook it.

"Thanks for, uh, not lying to me." He told her. Kai rolled her eyes.

"To be fair, I had no idea what was going on, so don't go thanking me for thinking 'oh, I can take him' and jumping off a balcony to tackle you." Steve laughed, though it sounded a little forced.

"Aren't you a little young to be an agent, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I don't and I'm not an agent anymore. I got kicked out." She explained shortly. He looked at her, confused, but she didn't offer any more information.

"It was nice meeting you." He told her.

"Nice meeting you too. I'll let you… adjust." She waved her hands around the building aimlessly and then headed for the door. Then she stopped again and turned back. He was still watching her.

"If you are even in need of a good looking, sarcastic girl with the skills to kill… You can find me at Stark Towers."

"_Stark_ Towers?" Steve echoed.

"Yeah... Tony Stark's my dad. Don't worry, if you ever actually show up, I'll meet you at the front door. You won't have to deal with him. See ya."

* * *

Kai took a deep breath as she entered Stark Towers. She _had said_ that Steve could find her here. And that was her way of forcing herself to make good on the promise she had made herself. The first floor was crowded, as usual, but it wasn't hard to spot Pepper and Tony talking (or, more likely, arguing) by the stairs. They were focusing on Pepper's tablet, so it was easy to approach them without their notice.

"Hey." She got their attention and they looked up in surprise. She waved a hand in greeting.

"So, I screwed up. Again. Title of my autobiography, right? But-." She was interrupted by Pepper hugging her. She returned the hug, relieved. Tony looked her over, as if making sure that she wasn't covered in blood. For once, she wasn't. He smiled slightly at her.

"Welcome back, kiddo."


	10. Something Bad

.

* * *

Kai watched as Tony gave the presentation on his newest technology, which was a jump into the future as always. She didn't blend into the crowd (a group of reporters and middle-aged business men) but she stuck close to Pepper.

"You know, I think that you really have changed for the better, Kai." Pepper whispered to her.

"Yeah. I'd say my social skills are improving. I haven't beaten anyone to death with a chair today."

"What about yesterday?" Pepper asked, raising an eyebrow and glancing over her at her. A smirk tugged at Kai's lips.

"Yesterday was a bad day; we don't talk about yesterday." Kai told her in a hushed voice. Of course she was joking, but Pepper gave her a weird look. It had been a year, an entire year, since SHIELD dumped her. She was nineteen now. She could hardly believe that she had come to New York, bleeding and lost, when she was seventeen. In the past year, she had become more of a Stark than a Grace. SHIELD watched her, sure, but that meant that Hydra hadn't tried anything. It was a nice trade, in her opinion. Pepper was talking about sending her to college, but Kai was against it. She wasn't _that_ normal yet. Kai glanced around the crowd. Off to the side, by the door, was a man in a suit. The outline of his gun underneath his jacket was evident. There was no security hired today (Happy thought he could handle anything that happened; Pepper and Tony were sure that Kai could do even better) and Kai frowned. SHIELD didn't watch her in Stark Towers; this was the place where she was home free, no agent from any secret organizations. She leaned in to whisper to Pepper.

"I'll by right back."

"Okay." Kai pulled her phone out of her pocket and pretended to look at something on the screen as she made her way towards the door. Or, more accurately, towards the man in the suit. As she passed him, Kai pretended to accidentally bump into him.

"Oh, sorry." She told him.

"Not a problem, ma'am." She walked out the door, holding his gun. As it turns out, pick-pocketing wasn't a skill you easily forgot. A second later, the man ran out after her, obviously having discovered his missing gun. She held it up for him to see.

"Actually, it was a problem. For you, at least." She grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back, pressing the muzzle of the gun between his shoulder blades. Kai forced him into the alley, a slightly more private place. Then she shoved him away, letting him turn to look at her as she continued to point the gun at him.

"Are you working with SHIELD?"

"Yes." He answered hesitantly.

"Hhmm… You know, you aren't supposed to watch me inside Stark Towers. But you weren't watching me, were you?" She asked.

"Whoa, down girl." Kai froze at the sound of a familiar voice. She, slowly, turned towards Clint. He grabbed the gun from her and she didn't fight back. Clint handed the gun back to the agent.

"Back to your post." He nodded towards the building and the agent hurried off, looking slightly relieved.

"So it takes me interrogating a SHIELD agent for you to swoop in, huh, Clint?" Kai asked him. _Swoop in. Ha, bird joke, _she congratulated herself on the subtly of that one, but Clint didn't look amused.

"Actually, I had already planned on checking in on you today." He told her.

"I'm flattered. Why is that guy here?"

"Just security for Stark. Does he have a thing against bodyguards?"

"He has Happy." Clint didn't look impressed; not surprising.

"He has me and that's kind of the same thing. And am I your most important mission now days?"

"Did your father tell you anything about the Avengers Initiative?" Clint asked.

"Nothing. Not surprising; we haven't had many daddy-daughter talks involving secret spy organizations. I'll put it on the to-do list, though." Kai returned.

"Look, there's something going on. We're hoping it works out good, but if it does go south… There's a program, the Avengers Initiative. Bringing a group of people with skills together, see if they can become something more."

"And you're telling me this… why?"

"Because you're part of it, whether you know about it or not."

"I thought that no one liked me."

"This isn't about grouping together like-able people, Kai."

"I still don't understand why you're telling me this now, Clint."

"Like I said, SHIELD is messing with something. Something… Powerful."

"You mean, bad?"

"Probably." Clint admitted. Kai nodded knowingly.

"Well, let SHIELD handle it."

"We are. But if we can't, Fury's going to bring in The Avengers." He explained. Kai rolled her eyes.

"You're being very vague, you know that?"

"I was going to be guarding that powerful object, but I came to warn you that something is about to go down instead."

"So who's guarding that powerful object?"

"Natasha Romanoff."

"The girl that you trained, the slightly older version of me?"

"That would be the one." Clint and Kai had discussed Natasha briefly before. Kai had a feeling that, if she ever met the woman, they were either going to get along really well or they were going to try and kill each other; there wasn't going to be an in-between. Kai was opening her mouth to respond, but Clint put his hand to the radio in his ear to listen to something and she bit her tongue. After a second, Clint looked back at her.

"I have to go."

"Problem?" She asked, perhaps a little too smugly.

"Powerful objects tend to cause problems. Like large blonde men coming to get them back." He told her.

"You know, I think that I vaguely remember something like that happening once." Kai joked.

"I have to go. Just… Remember that SHIELD may be paying you a visit."

"They don't trust me, Clint. Whether I'm a like-able person or not, they don't want me back."

"You won't be a SHIELD agent. And if this goes as south as it might… they won't care about what you've done in the past."

"Careful or you'll get me rooting for this to go south." She warned.

"It might have just gone there. I'll see you around."

"Don't wait a year this time."

"I'll do my best." He agreed. She gave him a quick hug before he hurried off. Then, sighing to herself, Kai headed back into Stark Towers.

* * *

After sundown, Kai headed onto the sidewalk outside Stark Towers for her evening run. She had found that running was much more enjoyable when her life _didn't_ depend on it. Not carrying a heavy backpack and thinking 'I am going to have to kill someone' was helpful too. Kai put her ear-buds in, glancing around. No SHIELD agents that she could see and normally, considering how long her life had depended on her observational skills, she could spot them right away. She frowned. Did they seriously pull all their agents away? What was going on that was that serious? She shook her head. She wasn't a SHIELD agent anymore; it didn't matter. She pressed 'play' on her Ipod and set off at a steady sprint.


	11. The Tesseract

.

* * *

Kai jogged into the gym and took out her ear-buds. Steve Rogers looked up from where he was pummeling a punching bag.

"What did that thing ever do to you?" She asked teasingly.

"Hey." He greeted her. Kai went to hold the punching bag so it didn't swing around so much. She noticed that he didn't punch it nearly as hard when she was on the other side of it.

"So SHIELD contacted me today." She told him.

"Oh, yeah?"

"They sent one of my best friends to talk to me. Low blow."

"Barton?"

"That would be the one. He was extremely vague, which isn't like him at all." Kai agreed. They were silent for a minute, besides the sound of Steve's fists impacting the punching bag.

"What about that waitress down at the café? She's totally into you, Stevie." She finally spoke again.

"I doubt it. And don't call me that." He told her.

"She's into you, trust me. Ask her for her number next time."

"Uh… No." Steve returned.

"Why not? Scared? Shy? Don't know how to flirt? All of the above? Because I can do it for you, but that might cost you some major man-points, so-."

"Not the right time for a girlfriend. And please, don't ever try to get a girls number _for me_." He interrupted her.

"Well, we can set it up for next week or something." Kai gave him a smirk to show she was teasing him, something that she often did. Her phone vibrated with a text. She released the punching bag and went to sit on the edge of the boxing ring to read the new text. It was from Pepper, announcing that the new energy plan for Stark Towers was working and that Coulson was there. Kai texted back quickly to congratulate Pepper and to tell her to tell Coulson 'hi' for her. When she looked up, Steve punched the bag so hard it hit the floor.

"Whoa. Glad I wasn't behind that." She told him. He shook his head, obviously trying to clear out some thoughts. Kai glanced behind him.

"Oh crap." Steve looked at her and then followed her eyes to Director Fury as he walked over to them.

"Trouble sleeping?" He asked, as if this was all normal. Well, with his line of work, this was probably as normal as it got.

"I slept for seventy years, sir. I think I've had my fill."

"And I've had enough coffee today to give a bull a heart-attack. I'm good." Kai added, smiling.

"Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world." Steve started unwrapping his hands, leaning over his gym bag.

"I went under, the world was at war, I wake up… they say we won. They didn't say what we lost."

"We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently…"

"If you're going to plead for me to come back into SHIELD, then you are going to have to try a lot harder, Director." Kai told him, smirking.

"There's something I would like to show you two." Director Fury handed Steve a file; Kai got up and went to look at it as well. It showed a glowing blue cube.

"Hydra's secret weapon..." Steven muttered, staring at it. Kai looked away from the picture. _Hydra isn't going to a make a move; they're too scared of SHIELD, _she had to remind herself.

"Howard Stark fished that thing out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think. The Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs." Fury explained.

"Who took it from you?" Steve asked.

"He's called Loki. Miss Grace, you met his brother, Thor."

"Well, I wouldn't call that little encounter a proper meet-and-greet…"

"The point is: he's not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up on if you're in. Captain, there's a debriefing packet waiting for you in your apartment." Steve put a punching bag over his shoulder and started to walk away.

"Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract we ought to know now?" Fury called after him.

"You should have left it in the ocean." He left and Kai turned to Fury.

"What? I don't get a debriefing packet? I feel left out."

"You really a Stark, aren't you?"

"Biologically, yes. You showed that to both of us. Obviously you want something from me."

"I assume Barton told you about the Avengers Initiative?"

"He did."

"Then you know what we want you to do. We want to see if you can become something more. First off, you have to bring in another asset."

"Why can't you send someone you trust?"

"Because the woman we were going to send was… compromised. Natasha Romanoff was at the site when Loki came. He seems to be able to mind control people and… well, she's not on our side anymore."

"Natasha Romanoff? Barton's red haired little pet bunny?" Fury didn't answer, but that was okay; Kai already knew that.

"So if you can't get Barton's Little Red, you go for Barton's Little Black. Where am I going?"

"Calcutta."


	12. Calcutta

.

* * *

Kai watched as the girl ducked out the window, leaving Bruce Banner behind. Kai smirked; the girl knew how to act, she'd give her that.

"You should have got paid up front, Banner." Bruce muttered to himself.

"For a man who's supposed to be avoiding stress, you pick a heck of a place to settle down. I mean, Calcutta, really?" Bruce turned to look at Kai and she raised a hand in greeting.

"Hi." Bruce hesitated but then spoke.

"Avoiding stress isn't the secret."

"Then what is it? Yoga, jazz music, some voodoo mediation or something else I don't even know about?" Kai asked.

"You brought me to the edge of the city, smart. I, uh, assume the whole place is surrounded?"

"Actually, it's just you and me, believe it or not."

"And your actress buddy? Is she a spy too? They start that young?"

"I did." Kai said with a shrug.

"And who are you?"

"Kai Grace."

"Are you here to kill me, Miss Grace? Because, uh, that's not going to work out for you." He warned.

"I'm not here to kill you, don't get your panties in a bunch." Kai told him, rolling her eyes. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"You don't seem like a spy."

"Technically, I'm an assassin." She corrected him. He looked at her.

"Not helping the whole 'not here to kill you' thing, am I? Well, I'm here on the behalf of SHIELD."

"SHIELD…. How'd they find me?"

"I don't know. They just sent me here in a fancy jet to talk to you. But, assuming I know SHIELD like I think I do… They probably never lost you in the first place and your sense of security was false. Bummer, huh?"

"Why are you here?"

"They need you to come in."

"What if I say no?"

"You know, I don't think that's option. But if you'd like to try it, I can call Fury back and see what they'll do about. I wouldn't suggest it, though." Kai settled down on a wooden chair and propped her feet up on the table.

"And what if The Other Guy says no?"

"According to this neat little file that I read, you've been more than a year without incident. Would you really break that streak over something as small as a simple question?" Bruce rocked the old baby cradle in the corner of the room gently before he spoke again.

"Well, I don't always get what I want…" Kai glanced between him and the cradle. Why was it that everyone wanted kids? She didn't get that; she could never bring a child into the world, knowing that he or she would just become another target for her enemies. Plus, the thought of an ankle-bitter running around because of her wasn't a pleasing thought. She shook her head and returned her thoughts to the conversation at hand.

"Doctor, we're facing a possible global catastrophe."

"Those I actively try to avoid." She pulled out the picture from the pocket of her SHIELD uniform pants. They had given her back the pants and boots and offered her the jacket, but she kept her own t-shirt and hoodie instead.

"This is the Tesseract. It has the potential energy to wipe out the planet." Bruce put his glasses and went to look at the picture.

"What does Fury want me to do? Swallow it?"

"I could make a lot of sarcastic comments about that, but I'm going to go with something simple: no. He wants you to find it. It got taken by someone who isn't actually cheering for the good side. It emits a weak gamma signature, something too weak for SHIELD to track. But no one knows gamma radiation like you, Doc. If there was, they wouldn't have sent me here." Kai assured him.

"So Fury isn't after the monster?"

"Oh, I'm a big enough monster for Fury to deal with by myself. He wants a smart guy." She told him. Bruce just looked at her, as if wondering what she meant by that.

"Fury needs you on this or he wouldn't have taken the time to convince me to come here to talk to you."

"He needs me in a cage."

"No one is going to put you in a-."

"Stop lying to me!" He banged his fists down on the table as he yelled. Kai just looked at him.

"That was me." He assured her, holding up his hands as if he expected her to be pointing a gun at him. She nodded once, unfazed by his sudden yell.

"You're not scared. I was trying to see how you'd react."

"I'm aware. One sec." She tapped the radio in her ear.

"Stand down, guys."

"Just you and me, huh?"

"And a heavy armed quin-jet above us, but that wasn't my idea." Kai admitted, pointing upwards. Bruce was staring at her again. She rolled her eyes.

"Trust me, scaring me is not something that happens easily, Doc." She told him. He was nodding absentmindedly.

"I don't have a choice, do I?"

"I won't make you do anything. They might, though." She pointed upwards to signify the quin-jet and Bruce nodded.

"Let's get this over with…"

* * *

Bruce looked at his hands in the quin-jet as Kai sat very tense across from him. He glanced up at her.

"Is it me or is it the jet?"

"The jet. I'm not particularly fond of flying."

"Really? I thought you didn't get scared easily?"

"I don't. I didn't say I was scared of flying, I said I wasn't fond of it. If this thing crashes and I die, it's a very un-heroic way to leave the world, don't you think?" Bruce shrugged but didn't answer.

"When you get angry do you see green instead of red?" She asked. He looked at her, frowning.

"Sorry, I was just wondering."

"I really don't remember it too well when I get angry." He admitted.

"Hhmm… I would suggest my war of calming down when I'm angry, but I doubt you'd go for it."

"And what's that?"

"Hitting things until they stop moving."

"Yeah… That's not a good thing for me to do when I'm angry…"


	13. Going Rogue

.

* * *

Kai and Bruce stepped out of the quin-jet and onto the heli-carrier. Men were rushing around, doing their various assigned duties. Steve and Clint walked over to them.

"Ah, my boys!" Kai smiled at them.

"Dr. Banner." Steve greeted him.

"Ah, hi. They told me you'd be here too."

"Word is you can find the cube."

"Is that the only word on me?"

"The only word I care about."

"Any word on Little Red?" Kai asked Clint. He didn't seem fazed by her new nickname for Natasha.

"Not yet."

"She'll turn up. I'll knock her back into her senses. You two can ride off into the sunset togeth- Ow!" Clint smacked her on her arm.

"That didn't hurt." He protested.

"How would you know?" She smacked him in the arm in return as he listened to something on his radio.

"Must be strange for you… all of this." Bruce said to Steve, motioning around the deck. Steve shrugged.

"Well, this is actually kind of familiar."

"Bunch of monkeys running around, taking orders. Bet it is." Kai muttered.

"Yeah, I know. You don't do orders." Steve told her, sticking his hands into the pockets of his pants.

"I used to. That was my problem. I got over it."

"You guys might want to step inside. It's going to get a little hard to breath." Clint warned.

"Is this a submarine?" Steve asked.

"Really? They want me in a submerged, pressurized metal container?" Bruce asked sarcastically.

"No, this is the opposite." Clint corrected them. Steve, Bruce and Kai went to look over the side. Turbines were spinning below them and the entire carrier started to lift off from the surface of the water.

"So this is how I die… Surrounded by men way too old for me to date and people who would just love to kick me off the side…" Kai said under her breath. Then she spoke louder:

"Let's go inside now."

* * *

Clint led them onto the bridge of the ship. Agent Hill turned around as they walked in and Kai grimaced. _Today is just getting better and better!_ She thought sarcastically.

"Miss Grace." Agent Hill greeted her curtly.

"Miss me?" Kai asked, forcing a smirk onto her face. Agent Hill turned to talk to another agent instead. Kai looked at Clint.

"I don't think she missed me…"

"I don't either." He whispered back, smiling slightly.

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessibly camera on the planet. Phones, laptops… If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us." Coulson explained and everyone turned their attention to him.

"That's still not going to find them in time." Clint pointed out.

"You have to narrow your field. How many spectrometers do you have access to?" Bruce asked. Fury just looked at him.

"How many are there?"

"Call every lab you know. Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough a tracking algorithm for basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

"Agent Barton. Show Doctor Banner to his laboratory, please." Clint nodded and started to lead Bruce away.

"Agent Barton." He stopped and turned back towards Fury.

"Take Miss Grace with you."

"You don't trust me? I'm hurt." Kai said with a roll of her eyes, going to follow Clint and Bruce.

"I'd just feel better if Big Brother is watching you while you're on my ship." He told her. She gave him a fake smile.

"Well, I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable, Director…"

* * *

Kai sat on the floor outside of Bruce's laboratory, feeling oddly like the little kid that was sent out of the class for disrupting it. Agent Hill walked over to her and Kai looked up.

"Agent Hill."

"Miss Grace. We've located Loki. Director Fury wants you on the scene with Captain Rogers and Agent Barton."

"As what? The girl that dies first?"

"Not my call." Agent Hill said with a shrug. She started to walk away but Kai scrambled to her feet and stepped in front of her.

"I know that I'm not your favorite person in the world right now, but cut me some slack. I could have caused a lot more trouble than I did."

"Is that your defense? You could have been a worse agent than you were?" Agent Hill gave a short laugh and went to walk away again. Kai side-stepped in her way and Agent Hill looked ready to hit her.

"I'm part of SHIELD again. Maybe not as an agent, but Fury wanted me in the Avengers Initiative." Kai pointed out.

"Again, not my call. He thinks you can be useful. I think you're a girl that's just going to turn you back again, disobey orders because you feel like it. Going rogue is kind of your style, isn't it, Miss Grace?"

"Going rogue?"

"It means-."

"I know what 'going rogue' means! I didn't go to school, but I know how to use the internet! That's a bit dramatic don't you think?"

"Get ready to be dropped in Germany, Miss Grace." Agent Hill walked quickly away before Kai could get another word in.


	14. When Lightning Strikes

.

* * *

The quin-jet was cloaked as it flew over the crowd kneeling before Loki. Clint hit the switch that opened the doors. Steve jumped out immediately, landing with his shield in front of him, in between a civilian and the energy that came out of Loki's scepter. Kai slid out, landing on her feet and ducking and rolling.

"You know, the last time I was in Germany and I saw a man standing above everyone else… We ended up disagreeing." Steve said, striding forward.

"The soldier." Loki spat out. Kai tapped the shoulders of some of the civilians and motioned with her hand for them to get away, which they happily agreed to.

"The man out of time…" Loki continued.

"I'm not the one who's out of time." The quin-jet uncloaked, revealing weapons pointed straight at Loki.

"_Drop the weapon and stand down_!" Clint's voice came. Loki pointed his scepter at the quin-jet and it barely moved fast enough to avoid getting hit by the energy that surged out of the scepter. Steve threw his shield, which bounced off Loki's chest plate and came back at Steve. Now everyone was running and Kai made her way through the crowd in the opposite direction. Loki knocked Steve back and sent him rolling across the cement. Kai jumped up against the short cement wall surrounding a tree and jumped up onto Loki, trying to wrap her legs around his throat. She managed to get her legs around his shoulders, but couldn't hold on as he grabbed her by the arm and yanked her down. She was on her back, her arm twisted so Loki had the leverage. She kicked up, catching him in the stomach and causing him to let go of her arm. She used her momentum to flip up onto her feet again. She ducked as Steve threw his shield. Loki batted it away with his scepter and it went sliding across the pavement. Loki hit Steve with his scepter several times, knocking him all over the place.

"Kneel!"

"Not today!" Steve kicked him in the face and sent him stumbling backwards. Kai got a knife to Loki's throat but he knocked his head back into hers. As he whirled around to face her, she slashed at him. A large, bleeding cut appeared on his cheek.

"Eh, not like you were beautiful before." Kai dodged a punch but couldn't dodge the kick to the stomach that sent her to the ground. He packed a heck of a punch; she would give him that… The radio crackled in her ear.

"_Did you miss me?_" A familiar voice came. Tony swooped down in his Iron Man suit and fired at Loki, hitting him square in the chest. He went flying back against the steps. Steve and Kai got to their feet as Tony pointed multiple weapons at Loki.

"Make a move, Reindeer Games." Loki's armor shimmered and thing disappeared so he was just wearing his regular Asguardian clothing. Tony lowered his weapons.

"Good move."

"Mr Stark." Steve greeted him curtly.

"Captain." Tony glanced over at Kai.

"Daughter."

"Father."

* * *

Back in the quin-jet, Fury contacted them.

"_Is he saying anything?_"

"Nope." Clint returned.

"_Just get him here_. _We're low on time._" Fury ordered. Steve turned his back to Loki to talk to Tony.

"I don't like it."

"What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?"

"I don't remember it being that easy…"

"I don't remember _that_ being easy. The guy hits like a truck!" Kai put in. She pulled up her shirt to reveal the bruises on her stomach.

"Well, every assassin looses her touch eventually. Pepper's worried sick, by the way. So if you could text her or something…" Tony told her. She rolled her eyes but nodded. Tony turned back to Steve.

"And you were still pretty spry… for an older fellow. What's your thing? Pilates?" He asked.

"Tony…" Kai complained. Steve was just staring at him.

"It's like calisthenics. You might have missed a couple things, doing time as a capsicle…"

"Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in." Steve noted, obviously angry but trying not to show it.

"Yeah, there's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you. And, I'm sorry, when did you get back into SHIELD?" Tony turned to Kai.

"I'm not." Thunder and lightning struck all around them.

"Where is this coming from?" Clint asked.

"The sky?" Kai suggested.

"You're hilarious."

"I do my best." She replied as Tony smirked proudly.

"What's the matter? Scared of a little lightning?" Steve asked Loki.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows." There was a thump on the roof and everyone looked up. Tony put on his mask, walked over and opened the door. Steve grabbed his shield and helmet. Thor landed in the jet. Tony started to fire his weapons, but Thor hit him with his hammer and sent him flying back into Steve. Kai kneeled down to grab her knife from her boot, but she had barely straightened up in the time it took Thor to grab Loki and fly out of the jet again. Tony stood up.

"Now there's that guy…"

"Think he's a friendly?" Steve asked.

"He wasn't last time." Kai put in.

"It doesn't matter. If he frees Loki, or kills him, the Tesseract's lost." Tony reminded them.

"Stark, we need a plan of attack!" Steve protested as Tony moved to fly out of the quin-jet.

"I have a plan. Attack." With that said, Tony went after Thor and Loki. Steve ran to grab a parachute.

"I'd sit this one, Stevie!" Kai yelled over the roar of the wind.

"I don't see how I can."

"I do. You sit down and out of the fight. It's very simple!" Kai told him.

"These guys come from legends; they're basically gods." Clint put in.

"There's only one God… And I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that." Steve ran and jumped out of the jet. Kai and Clint glanced at each other.

"Land the quin-jet."

* * *

Clint crept forward, an arrow notched in his bow. Kai was right beside him, her knife in her hand. A loud banging sound erupted from in front of them and both of them were knocked to the ground with the shock wave. When they sat up, the trees around them had fallen over.

"I think we found them." Kai said, looking over at Clint. They got up and made their way into the clearing where Tony, Steve and Thor were. Steve was still on the ground, covering himself with his shield, and Thor was standing up, looking confused. Tony shoved a stick off him and slowly got to his feet. All three men looked around at each other.

"Are we done here?" Steve asked. Thor looked over at Kai and Clint. Clint lowered his bow to show he meant no harm. Kai and Thor looked at each other.

"You… The Midgaurdian that attempted to stand in my way!" Thor pointed at Kai and she rolled her eyes.

"That was so last year! Who says an assassin and a hard-hitting blonde dude can't be friends?"


	15. Touch and Go

.

* * *

Thor, Bruce, Kai, Tony, Clint and Steve sat around a large table, watching as Fury talked with Loki in his glass cell. As the talking ending, Bruce folded his arms across his chest.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?"

"Loki's going to drag this out, so… Thor. What's his play?" Steve asked.

"He has an army called the Chitauri. They are not of Asgard nor any world I know. He means to lead them against your people to win him the Earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army? From outer space…." Steve echoed.

"So wouldn't he have to get another portal?" Kai asked.

"That's what he needs Erik Selvig for." Bruce put in.

"Selvig?" Thor asked.

"He's an astrophysicist-." Bruce started.

"He is a friend." Thor interrupted firmly.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of our own. It's the scepter that does it." Clint told him.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him." Steve interrupted.

"Because he realized my awesomeness was too much for him?" Kai suggested. They all looked at her.

"Just trying to lighten the mood…"

"He's not leading an army from here." Clint agreed.

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats; you can smell crazy on him." Bruce told them.

"Have care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard and he is my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days." Clint pointed out.

"He's adopted…"

"Nice save, Blondie."

"I think it's about the mechanics…. Iridium. What does he need the iridium for?" Bruce asked.

"It's a stabilizing agent." Tony walked into the room.

"It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD." He passed Thor and gave him a pat on the arm.

"No hard feelings, Point Break. You got a mean swing. Also means that the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants." He explained.

"That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice but we did…" He pointed at a man at the controls. Then he put one hand over one of his eyes and looked at the screens in front of him.

"How does Fury even see these?" He asked.

"He turns." Agent Hill replied dryly.

"Sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials… Agent Romanoff can get her pretty little hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source of high energy density. Something to kick start the cube."

"When did you become an expert in thermal nuclear astrophysics?" Hill asked with a frown.

"Last night. The packet. Selvig's notes… Am I the only one who did the reading?" He asked.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve interrupted.

"He'd have to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the barrier." Bruce told him.

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunnel affect."

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."

"Finally! Someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" Steve whispered. Kai shrugged.

"I got the sassy Stark gene, not the smart one."

"It's good to meet you, Doctor Banner. Your work on anti-electron is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of how you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster." Tony told Bruce. Kai rolled her eyes.

"Thanks." Bruce finally replied.

"Doctor Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him." Fury told Tony as he walked into the room.

"I'd start with that stick of his. It might look magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon." Steve told them.

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest people I know into his personal flying monkeys." Fury protested.

"Monkeys? I do not understand-." Thor started.

"I do! I understood that reference!" Steve interrupted.

"Shall we play, doctor?" Tony asked, turning back to Bruce.

"This way, sir." They walked off.

* * *

Kai found herself sitting on the floor outside of the lab again. Steve walked over to her and stopped.

"What are you doing?"

"Sitting here, being miserable. You?" Steve sat down next to her.

"I got beat up." She complained.

"So did I." Steve pointed out. Kai looked at him.

"You're a soldier in a colorful outfit. I am an assassin. I do not get beat up. But in the past year, I got beat up by Thor, Loki and barely even slowed _you_ down." She complained.

"Should I be offended?" Kai didn't answer.

"If you makes you feel any better, you pack a heck of a punch when you jump off a balcony." He added.

"Well, then, make sure there are balconies everywhere if I ever have to fight Loki again…" Kai told him sarcastically.

"You never said who trained you as an assassin."

"Not going to either. Agent Hill is very mad about that too. I also got hit by a car and got knocked unconscious. I got beat up by a car!" Kai looked over at Steve, frowning.

"I don't know what to tell you." He admitted.

"That I'm still awesome."

"You're still awesome."

"Thank you, but that wasn't very sincere."

"I heard what you did at Stark Towers before you were with SHIELD. That was good." Steve told her.

"So at best, I'm a touch and go assassin? That doesn't work. I need someone to beat up." Steve stood up quickly.

"I don't know what to tell you, Kai." He walked into the lab and a second later she heard him say:

"Are you nuts?!" Remembering that Tony was in the lab, she jumped to her feet and followed Steve in.

"Jury's out. Wow. You really have a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Bongo drums, huge bad of weed?" Tony asked Bruce.

"Is everything a joke to you?" Steve asked.

"Funny things are."

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, Doctor."

"It's alright. I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things." Bruce assured him.

"You're tip-toeing big man. You need to strut." Tony told him.

"You need to focus on the problem." Steve protested.

"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us in, why now? Why not before? I mean, we could have prevented Loki from taking the Tesseract in the first place, what with you, me and Kiddo-" Tony motioned to Kai before going on. "-what isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables."

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked. Tony had retrieved a bag of blueberries from a table and offered the bag to Kai. She took some and sat down on top of the table near the scepter, across from Bruce.

"He's the spy, Captain. _The_ spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging him to, isn't it?" He motioned to Bruce, who looked startled.

"Uh… I just wanna finish my work here and…"

"Spit it out, Bruce." Kai told him.

"A warm light for all mankind… Loki's jab at Fury about the cube. I think that was meant for you." He pointed at Tony, who, as if in return, offered him some blueberries.

"Even if Agent Romanoff didn't tell Loki about it, the Tower was all over the news." Bruce pointed out.

"Stark Towers? That big ugly…-." Off Tony and Kai's looks, Steve slowed down before he continued. "-building in New York?"

"That's right. Powered by an arc reactor, self sustaining energy. That building will run itself for, what, a year?"

"That's just the prototype. I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at." Tony explained to Steve.

"So why didn't SHIELD bring him on the Tesseract project, even, like he said, just for protection? What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"I should probably look into that. Once my decryption program finishes breaking into all of SHIELD's secure files…" Tony agreed.

"You didn't!" Kai protested.

"Oh, but I did."

"They'll blame me and then _I'll_ get put down like a rabid dog!" She told him. He shook his head.

"They won't even find out. Besides, everyone knows you're here because you hit things hard, not for your brains." Tony reminded her.

"In a few hours, I'll know every secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide." He added, smiling.

"Yet you're confused why they didn't want you around." Steve told him sarcastically.

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? That's not awesome." Tony pointed out.

"Can I cut in here?" Kai asked, raising her hand as if she was in class. They turned to look at her.

"He's trying to get under our skin. Manipulation 101, people. Get everyone to turn against everyone else and stirring up distrust is the fastest way to do that. I learned that trick when I was eight, for crying out loud." She told them.

"Takes a manipulator to know another…" Tony agreed.

"I prefer to think of myself as an 'outcome engineer' but yes." She agreed, nodding. He offered her another blueberry as if that was the reward for agreeing with him.

"We have orders, we should follow them." Steve put in.

"Followings not really my style." Tony protested.

"And orders without explanations rub me wrong." Kai agreed. She was rewarded another blueberry.

"And you Stark's are all about style, aren't you?" Steve asked.

"Since when am I a Stark? I'm a Grace, there's a huge difference." Kai reminded him, narrowing her eyes at her best friend.

"Of the people in this room, which one of us is, a, wearing a spangly outfit and, b, not of use?" Tony asked.

"Steve… Tell me this doesn't smell a little funky to you?" Bruce asked.

"Just find the cube." Steve walked out. Kai jumped off the table and hurried after him, leaving Tony and Bruce in the lab.


	16. Manipulated

.

* * *

Kai followed Steve all the way to a locked storage room on the other side of the heli-carrier.

"Steve, hey! Since when am I Stark, Steve?" She demanded. Steve turned to look at her, finally.

"That bothers you, doesn't it?"

"A little bit." She admitted. He turned and pulled open the door.

"I think that was locked."

"It was." He walked in and she glanced around. _They are so going to kill me for this,_ she thought. Then she walked in. Steve looked around the room and then jumped up onto a metal box, using it to jump up onto the railing and swing himself onto the next level.

"Kai-."

"I'm coming; don't start doing bad things without me, Stevie."

"Don't call me that." She climbed up onto the next level, grabbing a hold of the floor to squirm underneath the railing.

"I was going to say there's a ladder over there." Steve pointed to a ladder a few feet away. Kai looked at it.

"That makes sense. Come on." She nudged him in the ribs and they walked over to a large metal box. Kai undid the latches and they pushed open the lid.

"Hydra." It was the first time in a long time that Kai had said that word. They stared at the armor and weapons in the box.

"You know Hydra weapons?"

"I read some files." She lied. Steve went to pick up one of the weapons and she stepped back.

"What?" He asked.

"Don't like the idea of what those do…" He took one of them and slammed the lid down again.

"Let's go." In her ear, Kai heard her radio turn on and Clint spoke.

"_Loki wants to unleash The Hulk. Keep Banner in the lab_." Kai pressed a finger to her radio.

"I'm on my way." She told him. She slipped between the bards of the railing and hit the floor lightly. She and Steven hurried towards the lab.

* * *

Tony, Bruce and Fury were all in the lab by the time that Steve and Kai got there. Steve slammed the hydra weapon down on the table.

"SHIELD wants to use the cube to make weapons. Sorry, your computer was going a little slow for me."

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract-."

"Every single Hydra helmet, piece of armor and weapon there was? A little extreme, don't you think?" Kai demanded. She was seeing red now; how could think that Hydra weapons, anything to do with Hydra, could be turned into something _good_?

"This does not mean that we're making-." Fury started.

"I'm sorry, Nick. What were you lying?" Tony asked, turning around a monitor to show the plans for weapons displayed on the screen.

"I was wrong, Director, the world hasn't changed a bit." Steve told him. Thor and Clint walked into the room.

"You didn't know about this, did you?" Bruce asked Kai.

"Of course not!"

"Doctor Banner, Loki is manipulating you-." Clint started.

"And SHIELD is doing what exactly?"

"You didn't come here because Kai batted her eyelashes at you." Clint snapped.

"And I'm not leaving because her self-proclaimed big brother gets a little twitchy!" Bruce shot back.

"When did this become about me?!" Kai demanded.

"I want to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to make weapons of mass destruction-." Bruce started.

"Because of him!" Fury pointed at Thor.

"Me?"

"Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that we're not only not alone but we're hopelessly…. Hilariously… outgunned."

"Hydra's not the solution!" Kai told him.

"We're not Hydra." _No, but the real thing is still out there_.

"Our people want nothing but peace with your planet!" Thor protested.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you? _And_ you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched. They can't be controlled." Kai flinched.

"Trying to control people… That's going to blow up in your face, Fury." She told him quietly.

"Like you were trying to control the cube." Steve agreed.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it! And his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war!"

"A higher form?" Steve echoed.

"You forced our hand! We had to come up with-." Fury started.

"A nuclear deterrent? Cause that always calms everything right down." Tony said sarcastically.

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?" Fury asked coldly.

"I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep in-." Steve started.

"Wait, wait, hold on. How is this now about me?"

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?"

"I thought humans were more evolved than this!"

"Excuse me, do we come to your planet and blow stuff up?"

"Are you guys seriously this stupid? Loki is man-." Kai started, but was drowned out by everyone else.

"SHIELD monitors potential threats."

"Americans are threats?"

"We all are!"

"VERBAL THREAT! I FEEL THREATENED!" Tony yelled because of something that Steve said.

"GUYS!" Kai tied to get their attention but it didn't work; they kept on yelling at each other.

"You speak of control, yet you cause chaos!"

"What are we a team? No, no, we're a chemical mixture that causes chaos. We're a time bomb." Bruce told them.

"You need to step away." Fury warned.

"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony asked.

"You know why! Back off." Steve snapped at him.

"Oh, I'm starting to what you to make me."

"Big man in a suit. Take that off and what are you?"

"Genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist."

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you! I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy walk over you."

"I think I would cut the wire."

"Always a way out… You know, you may not be a threat, but you need to stop pretending to be a hero!"

"A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!"

"Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds."

"You people are so petty… and tiny." Thor laughed.

"Yeah, this is a team." Bruce said sarcastically.

"Agent Barton, please escort Doctor Banner back to-." Fury started.

"Where? You rented out my room."

"The cell was just in case-."

"In case you needed to kill me. But you can't… I know. I tried… I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth… The Other Guy spit it out! So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. It was good. Until _you_ dragged me back into this freak show. You put everyone here at risk. You want to know my secret, Miss Grace? You want to know how I stay calm?"

"Bruce…" Kai started, staring at the scepter in his hand.

"Doctor Banner! Put down the scepter." Steve told him firmly. He looked down, as if realizing he was holding it. Slowly, he put it back on the table. The computer beeped and he went over to it.

"We've got it." Tony announced.

"I guess you don't get to see my party trick after all."

"I can get there faster." Tony said.

"The Tesseract rightly belongs on Asgard!" Thor protested.

"You're not going alone!" Steve grabbed his arm, but Tony shoved him off.

"And you're going to stop me?"

"Tony, Steve-." Kai started.

"Put on the suit, let's find out!"

"I'm not afraid to beat up an old man."

"Put on the suit!" Bruce stared at the screen in front of him.

"Oh my god…"

"What?!" Kai demanded. She turned towards him, but in that second, an explosion erupted below them. She and Bruce were thrown out the window and hit the grated floor below, hard.


	17. The Hulk and The Spider

.

* * *

Kai looked around, dazed. Her ears were ringing and everything was a little too blurry for her taste. Some part of her mind acknowledged that someone was talking to her through the radio. She shook her head and forced herself to focus.

"_Kai? Are you okay?_" Clint. She looked around her. Her leg was trapped between two pieces of rubble, but nothing seemed broken.

"I'm alright… Can you go beat the living crap out whoever just did that?" She released the button on her radio and looked over at Bruce. He was groaning, his fists balled up as he slowly pushed himself up. Then he collapsed again, still groaning.

"We're alright… right?" She asked. He didn't answer. She looked back at her leg. She could probably yank it out, if she was quick and could ignore the pain. Ignoring the pain was something she was good at. She looked back at Bruce.

"Bruce. You're fine. Everything's peachy." She tried to convince him.

"Are you hurt?" Two guys started running towards her but she waved them away. Seeing Bruce, they complied and sprinted off again.

"Bruce, this is what Loki wants! He's a manipulator! Takes one to know one, remember? Bruce, calm down! I swear I'll get you out of this and take you back to Calcutta myself, Bruce!"

"_You swear_?!" Bruce roared. He looked at her and she saw his face was turning green. He swelled up, his shirt ripping as he turned green and too large to still be Bruce. He stumbled off the ledge they were on. Kai got a hand underneath the pipe that was pinning her leg but kept an eye on The Hulk. He looked at her and his eyes turned back for a split second. Then he was The Hulk again. The Hulk slammed his arm against a tank and it crumpled in on itself. His back was to her. She pushed up on the pipe and yanked her leg out. Then, scrambling off the elevated floor grate, she stumbled towards the stairs. She turned back to look at The Hulk. He growled and came at her. She sprinted up the stairs, jumping halfway and grabbing the ledge above her. She pulled herself up, squirming underneath the rail, as The Hulk ripped the staircase away below her. She landed on a grate and jumped away. His hand punched through the grate and she started sprinting. Down a small flight of stairs… She was in the lowest possible part of the heli-carrier. She crawled underneath the pipes, moving as fast as she could. _Crawling is acceptable,_ she told herself, _puking is also acceptable, but not recommended… Stopping is not. Keep moving_. She weaved her way through the maze of pipes, wondering where the heck The Hulk was. A shadow passed over her and she crumpled into a ball, making herself as small as possible. When the shadow was gone, she grabbed her knife from her boot and crept out. The Hulk roared at her and she threw the knife. It hit him in the shoulder and bounced off, but succeeded in angering him. She snatched the knife from where it bounced off him and sprinted away. She was on a catwalk of sorts, surrounded by glass. The Hulk charged after her, shattering the glass as he slammed into it. Kai sped up, stumbling over her own feet. A giant hand batted her away like a baseball. She hit a wall and then the floor. The Hulk roared again and came at her, a hand raised to hit her again. Thor slammed into him and both of them went through the wall and into the next room. Kai let out a breath and slid to the floor. _So you can be best friends with a hard hitting blonde… Good to know…_

* * *

Kai woke up to a voice in her ear.

"_Romanoff is heading for the detention level. Does anybody copy?_" Fury demanded. Kai pushed herself into a sitting position and looked at herself. No blood spurting, no bones sticking out… The Hulk had beaten up to badly. She reached up to tap the radio in her ear.

"I copy."

* * *

Natasha was making her way across a catwalk, but she stopped and listened to something. Kai leapt down on top of her and they both went sprawling on the metal grate-floor below them. Natasha said something in Russian.

"Sorry, don't speak Russian." Natasha slashed at her with a knife and Kai narrowly avoided it, kicking out and catching Natasha in the side.

"I said: walk away." Natasha translated.

"Can't do that." Natasha leapt up and onto Kai, bringing her down by wrapping her legs around her neck. They both hit the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, each limb trying to hit the other person in a flurry of kicks and punches. Kai untangled from her and slipped underneath a large pipe. She climbed on top of it instead as Natasha pulled out her gun. Jumping down, Kai slammed Natasha's wrist in a metal bar and she dropped her gun, letting it fall to the level below. Then Kai jumped from that catwalk to the next. Natasha swung herself over as well, looking pretty ticked off that she'd lost her gun. Kai wiped away some blood from her nose.

"I had a feeling we weren't going to like each other." Which, in hindsight, seemed like a pretty horrible thing to say to someone who was being mind controlled. Kai grabbed hold of one of the vertical bars and swung herself around it, kicking Natasha in the chest. While she was stunned, Kai stabbed at her with her knife. Natasha grabbed her arm and twisted it. Kai threw her knife to her other hand. Their arms twisted up together, Natasha trying to use her own knife and against her and Kai desperately trying to get a good slash in. Natasha kicked Kai's legs out from under her and got the upper hand, pressing the blade of the knife to Kai's throat. Kai tightened her grip on the knife, forcing it away from her throat. Natasha put all of her weight into it and Kai turned her head. The knife hit the grate instead. Kai head-butted Natasha and she rolled off the younger girl. Kai kicked out, catching Natasha in the face and slamming her head down against the grate. Dazed, Natasha stopped fighting. Kai looked at her, wondering if she was going to have to hit her again. Then Natasha passed out. Kai sat up and back against her heels, wiping the blood off her face in annoyance. She tapped her radio.

"Agent Romanoff is down for the count."

"_So are the rest of Loki's agents._" Clint told her.

"Good, because I really wasn't in the mood to deal with anyone else." She collapsed on her back on the grate.

"_Coulson's down_." Fury's voice came over the radio. Kai sat up again.

"_EMT's are on their way_." Agent Hill reported.

"_They're here. They called it_."

* * *

**A/N I'm still not happy with how my fight scenes turn out (they ALWAYS sound better in my head!) but I hope that I'm getting a little better. As always, thank you for reading and I would love to see some more review! I'll update again soon. **


	18. Soldiers

.

* * *

Tony, Steve and Kai sat at the table near the bridge. Fury threw a set of bloody Captain America trading cards in front of them.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket. Guess he never did get you to sign them. We're dead in the air up here. Our communications, the location of the cube, Banner, Thor… I got nothing for you. Lost my one good eye… I guess I had that coming. Yes, we were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number though, because I was playing something even riskier. There was an idea, the Starks know this, called The Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes." Tony stood up and walked away. Kai watched him leave. Fury just shook his head.

"Well, it was an old fashioned notion…"

* * *

Steve followed Tony to an empty room. Kai walked in behind them and sat down on a ledge, letting her legs dangle over the edge.

"Was he married?" Steve asked.

"No. There was a, uh, a cellist, I think." Tony told him.

"I'm sorry. He seemed like a good man."

"He was an idiot."

"Why? For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone."

"He was doing his job."

"He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have…" Tony trailed off, not finishing.

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony." Steve told him.

"Right… How did that work for him?"

"Is this the first time you've lost a soldier?"

"We are not soldiers!" Tony and Steve jumped and turned towards Kai. They hadn't even realized she was in the room until she yelled at Steve. Kai climbed to her feet again, folding her arms tightly against her chest.

"We're not soldiers… You're a soldier… We aren't… I… I'm not a soldier." She sputtered.

"You've never actually been in a battle before, have you? You take out a target, but you don't actually fight anyone else." Steve said, looking at her. Kai brushed aside a loose strand of a hair, one of the many strands that had fallen out of her ponytail. The movement was too jerky, too sudden, to be pulled off as casual.

"I'm not a solider. Stop making this personal…."

"I'm not making this-."

"He made it personal." Tony interrupted.

"I didn't-."

"Loki made it personal. He hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart." Steve answered immediately.

"Yeah, sure, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us; he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

"Right, I caught his act in Stuttgart." Steve agreed.

"Yeah. That's just the previews. This is… this is opening night. And Loki, he's a full-tail diva. He wants flowers; he wants parades, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered-." Tony stopped abruptly. Steve and Kai looked at him.

"Son of a-!"

* * *

Kai took off the SHIELD insignia on her black leather pants. Retying her hair up into a ponytail, she followed Steve to the room where Natasha and Clint were.

"Time to go."

"Go where?" Clint asked.

"I'll tell you on the way."

"I'm going too." Natasha put in. Steve looked at her and then at Clint. He nodded once and Steve echoed her nod.

"You got a suit?"

"Yeah."

"Then suit up."

* * *

Steve, Natasha, Clint and Kai walked onto one of the quin-jets. Tony had already left in his Iron Man suit. A pilot stepped in their way.

"You guys aren't authorized to be in here-." Steve held up a hand to stop the pilot right there.

"Son, just don't."

* * *

Clint and Natasha sat in the pilots seats in the front of the quin-jet. Steve and Kai sat in the back.

"You ready for this?" He asked.

"Is it too late to back out?" For a second, it seemed like Steve thought she was serious and was opening his mouth to respond but Kai cut him off.

"Don't. There's a first time for everything, including going into a battle…" Clint glanced back at them from the front seat.

"We're approaching New York."


	19. Frontline

.

* * *

Kai listened in on what was happening in Stark Towers through Tony's radio, which he had apparently left on.

"_Uh… Actually, I'm planning to threaten you_." He was obviously talking to Loki now. Kai glanced out the windshield of the quin-jet and saw that, while they were _approaching_ New York, they were still a long ways out from Stark Towers.

"_Yeah, it's seen a bit of mileage. You've got the blue stick of destiny. Would you like a drink? No, no, no! Threatening. No drink? You sure? I'm having one…. The Avengers. It's what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. Earth's mightiest type sort of thing… Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one. But let's do a head count here. Your brother, the demi-god; a super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend; two pretty hard-hitting SHIELD agents; a man with breath-taking anger management issues and then, my personal favorite, a master assassin that doesn't take crap from anyone, my daughter._" Kai smiled slightly at his words.

"_And you, big fella, you've managed to piss off every single one of them… Not a great plan. When they come, and they will, they'll come for you… We have a hulk… You're missing the point. There's no throne, there's no version of this where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it's too much for us, but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be dang sure we'll avenge it_." There was a long pause after that. Kai looked over her shoulder out the windshield again. They still weren't close enough to do anything…

"_Well, performance issues, you know? Jarvis, anytime now!_" There was the sound of breaking glass and then silence. Then, Tony spoke again:

"_And there's one other person you pissed off! His name was Phil_." As Clint closed in on Stark Towers, the four of them saw exactly how big of a problem the portal was. Aliens flew out of it, swarming the streets. Kai spoke into her radio.

"Tony, we're here. We're heading north east."

"_What, did you stop for drive-thru? Swing that park, I'm gonna lay 'em out for you_." He ordered. He flew past in his Iron Man suit, followed by a dozen aliens in their flying chariots of doom. Clint and Natasha fired the weapons on the quin-jet and took out most of them. One of their energy weapons hit the wing of the quin-jet and it spiraled towards the ground. Kai and Steve hit the floor on their backs as the quin-jet crashed into the ground.

"Hope you didn't have some brilliant plan regarding this thing." Kai told Steve, motioning around them at the quin-jet. He jumped up to his feet again and went to open the door. She flipped up onto her feet and followed him out, with Natasha and Clint right behind them. They all looked up at the portal in the sky. A giant ship came out of it, shaped like a flying worm.

"Stark, are you seeing this?" Steve asked into his radio.

"_I'm seeing… still working on believing. Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?_" He asked.

"Haven't seen him since he tried to kill me." Kai told him, sounding more than a little bitter about the whole thing.

"_Just keep me posted_." Chitauri warriors were on the streets all around them. Steve looked around and then back at the other three.

"You think you can hold them off?"

"Captain, it would be my genuine pleasure." Clint assured him, notching an arrow into his bow. Natasha grabbed a gun, nodding slightly in agreement. Steve glanced at Kai.

"Stop worrying about me. I have aliens to kill. Go." She ordered. He ran off towards the police that were trying to set up a barricade in the streets.

"This is like Budapest all over again!" Natasha yelled as she shot at some aliens.

"You and I remember Budapest very differently…" Clint returned, giving her a weird look. Kai jumped over a car, landing on the back of one of the aliens. With her knife, she stabbed him on the throat and he went down. She rolled off him and kicked up, catching another one in the chest. He swung at her with his gun since she was too close to shoot and she dodged it, stabbing him in the stomach when he left himself open. Scrambling to her feet again, she looked around. There were Chitauri everywhere; how was she supposed to decide which one to go after next? Three of them were attacking a café; that was as good of a place to start as any. Kai jumped over the railing separating the side-walk from the outside eating area. One of the aliens turned around, but she was already too close. She reached up and snapped his neck before moving on to the other two, who knew she was there by now. She jumped onto the closest one, riding piggy-back style, and stabbed her knife into his back. The other one shot at her but caught his buddy in the chest instead. The body hit the ground and Kai duck-and-rolled behind an overturned table for cover. Energy blasts were flying past her; if she moved from her cover, she would be dead in a second. She heard the alien walking closer to her. As he approached, she jumped up and tackled him. He used his gun to hit her wrist aside and her knife clattered away. She used her foot to pin his arm to the ground and then wrapped her hands around his throat to strangle him. When he stopped moving, she released him. She wasn't sure if he was dead or unconscious, but either way, she had more aliens to deal with and he wasn't getting up any time soon. She rolled off him into and into a kneeling position, searching for her knife. A hand appeared in her line of vision, offering her the knife. She looked up at the seven or eight year old girl who was holding it.

"Thanks." She took the knife and the girl scurried back to her mother, who was yelling for her to come back. Knife in hand, Kai jumped over the railing and into the street again.

* * *

Kai stabbed an alien in the throat and they both went down in a tangle of arms and legs. She shoved the body off her and sat up with a huff of annoyance.

"_Kai… You're getting a little far away, aren't you?_" Clint, always getting into her business… She pressed the button on her radio.

"Well, in case you hadn't noticed yet, Bird-Boy, there are Chitauri everywhere." She replied. She was annoyed, she was already aching from various fights and she was pretty sure it hadn't been more than ten minutes since she'd arrived in New York. Not a good sign.

"_Yeah, well, fall back. We're by the quin-jet_." Clint told her.

"On my way." She pushed herself to her feet and ran for the quin-jet.


	20. Worse

.

* * *

Thor, Natasha, Clint and Steve had already gathered together by the time Kai joined them.

"The power surrounding the cube is impenetrable." Thor reported.

"_Thor's right; we gotta deal with these guys_." Tony told them over the radio.

"And how do we do that? There are six of us and hundreds of them." Kai pointed out, wiping the blade of her knife on her pants.

"As a team." Steve told her firmly. _Yeah, yeah, rah-rah go team!_ She thought sarcastically, but didn't dare say it. She figured it wouldn't be appreciated at that moment.

"I have unfinished business with Loki." Thor told them.

"Yeah, get in line!" Natasha snapped.

"Save it. Loki's gonna keep this fight focused on us and that's what we need. Without him, these things could run wild. We've got Stark up top, he's gonna need us…" Steve trailed off as Bruce rode up to them on a motorcycle.

"So, this all seems horrible." He said, getting off the motorcycle and walking over to them.

"I've seen worse." As soon as the words were out of Kai's mouth, she knew that she'd hit another one of Bruce's nerves, but he just gave her an apologetic look.

"Sorry." He told her. _Sorry doesn't fix almost killing me_, she thought bitterly. But instead, she said:

"Care to use that anger against someone else this time around, Bruce?" He nodded in agreement, looking slightly relieved that Kai didn't seem completely pissed off at him.

"Stark, we got him, Banner, just like you said." Steve said into his radio.

"_Tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you_." Tony returned. They all watched as Tony flew around the side of a building, a giant worm ship right behind him.

"I don't see how that's a party…" Natasha said. They all started to back up, but Bruce walked towards it.

"Dr. Banner, now might be a good time for you to get angry." Steve told him.

"That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry." He transformed into the Hulk and smashed his fist into the head of the worm like creature as it neared the ground. It started to flip over, falling towards them.

"_I got you covered_!" Tony told them. He shot at the creature and smaller pieces fell towards them. Steve covered himself and Natasha with his shield. Clint and Kai ducked behind a car. Kai grabbed Thor by the arm and pulled him down with them, even though he didn't seem interested in taking cover. When it was over, they all came out from behind their cover.

"_Getting cozy with your blonde buddies?_" Tony asked Kai teasingly.

"When this is over, we're going to have a talk about some of the things you say." She snapped at him. They looked up at the portal again to see more worm ships coming through.

"_Call it, Captain_." Tony urged.

"Alright, listen up. Until we can close that portal up there, we're gonna use containment. Barton, I want you on that roof, eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything gets more than three blocks out, you turn it back or you turn it to ash."

"Wanna give me a lift?" Clint asked Tony.

"_Right. Clench up, Legolas_." He grabbed Clint and both of them flew off towards the nearest roof.

"Thor, you've gotta try and bottleneck that portal, slow them down. You've got the lightning, light 'em up." Steve added. Thor spun his hammer around and flew off. Steve looked between Natasha and Kai.

"You girls and me, we stay here on the ground, keep the fighting here. And Hulk…" Steve turned towards Hulk, who whirled around.

"Smash!"

* * *

Kai dodged as a Chitauri swung at her with his gun and kicked him in the chest with both legs. They both went down. She threw her knife and it hit him in the neck. She retrieved the knife and stood up again. Steve's shield shot past her and hit another Chitauri behind her. She ducked it as it bounced back towards him.

"Thanks." She called, resisting the urge to point out that she could handle herself. Steve nodded.

"Captain, none of this is gonna mean a thing if we don't close that portal." Natasha pointed out, firing at more Chitauri.

"Our biggest guns couldn't touch it."

"Well, maybe it's not about guns." She was looking at the cube on the top of Stark Towers.

"You wanna get up there, you're gonna need a ride." He pointed out. She looked up at the flying chariots above them.

"I got a ride. I could use a lift though."

"You sure about this?"

"Yeah, it's gonna be fun." She jumped off a car and landed on Steve's shield, which he used to throw her up onto one of the chariots.

"And then there were two." Kai told Steve, tightening her grip on her knife. But Steve wasn't look at her.

"Move, move!" He ordered. Another chariot fired on the bridge they were on and the both turned and jumped over the railing. They landed on the top of a bus and kept running as the firing continued. They slid down the windshield, across the hood and hit the ground. The chariot flew past them and continued on.

"You alright?" Steve asked.

"Define alright."

"Are you dead?"

"I don't think so."

"Then walk it off." He told her.

"You were more fun when we weren't about to die, you know..." Kai grumbled. She threw her knife into the back of an alien and then ran to retrieve it again. When she turned back, Steve was gone, disappearing down another street to continue the fight. A blast from one of the Chitauri weapons hit her in the arm and she hit the ground, scrambling behind a car.

"_Don't worry, Kai, I got ya…_" Clint said through the radio. Glancing back, she saw an arrow sink into the Chitauri's best. She pulled aside the shredded, falling-apart fabric to examine the wound. A second degree burn was covering her upper arm. She gritted her teeth against the pain and got to her feet again.

"_You alright, Kai?_"

"I'll walk it off."


	21. The End of the Battle

.

* * *

Kai ran over to Steve as he slowly got off the top of the car he'd been blown onto. The civilians in the building Steve had been fighting in were being escorted out by the police officers.

"Hey, are you okay?" She asked. His helmet had fallen off and he didn't make a move to put it back on.

"There's no way we can take out all of them." He told her.

"Do you have a point with that or are you just being depressing?" She asked, cradling her injured arm against her chest. A squad of Chitauri raced towards them, firing the whole time. Steve held up his shield to deflect them back and then they went to meet the aliens head-on. Lightning struck around them, hitting the Chitauri but avoiding them. Thor landed next to them and they went to fight another squad. As they were fighting, Steve got hit in the stomach with one of the weapons and he went down. Thor threw his hammer at the alien as Kai helped Steve to his feet.

"Are you ready for another bout?" Thor asked.

"What, you getting sleepy?" Steve asked. Clint walked over to them, wiping the blood of one of his arrows.

"They invaded my rooftop." He reported, sounding a bit peeved by the whole thing.

"You ran out of arrows?" Kai asked.

"Yeah. I'm collecting my old ones again." He motioned towards the one he had in his hand.

"_I can close it! Can anybody hear me? I can shut the portal down!_" Natasha's voice came over the radio.

"Do it!" Steve cried.

"_No, wait_!" Tony's voice came in.

"Stark, these things are still coming!" Steve reminded him.

"_I got a nuke coming in, it's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it…_" Tony flew past them, aiming the nuke at the portal. Both of them went towards it. Kai reached up to push the button on her radio.

"Shouldn't you let go about now?" She asked nervously.

"_Gotta make sure it gets to the mothership_…" Both him and the nuke disappeared into the portal. They all waited, watching the portal.

"Close it." Steve told Natasha.

"No, wait!" Kai cried, turning back to him. He just shook his head at her. The portal started to close. _Come on, come on_, she silently pleaded. All around them, the aliens were dropping dead, their mothership destroyed. Kai watched as Tony fell through right as the portal closed.

"Son of gun!" Steve said behind her.

"He's not slowing down…" Thor started to spin his hammer around, getting ready to fly. Hulk caught Tony and hit the side of a building, sliding down it and taking most of it with him. They both hit the ground and Hulk shoved Tony off him with a little more force than necessary. Kai, Steve, Clint and Thor ran over to them, but Kai reached them first. She tried to pry his mask off, but couldn't do it. Thor grabbed it and ripped it off instead.

"It doesn't look like he's breathing." Steve said, as if that wasn't already obvious to the others.

"Tony! _Dad_!" Kai yelled. Hulk roared in fury and Tony jerked awake.

"What just happened?! Please tell me nobody kissed me." Tony told them. Thor chuckled quietly, Kai rolled her eyes and Steve sat back on his heels.

"We won." Steve told him.

"Alright… Hey… Alright. Good job, guys. Let's just not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day. Have you ever tried Shawarma? There's a Shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is but I wanna try it." Tony said.

"We're not finished yet." Thor reminded him, looking towards Stark Towers. Tony nodded slightly.

"And then Shawarma after…"

* * *

The Avengers surrounded Loki as he lied on the floor, still recovering from the damage Hulk had done to him. He looked at them and didn't move.

"If it's all the same to you… I'll have that drink now."

* * *

They escorted Loki to a semi-private place in the park. After Thor and Loki disappeared in a flash of light, the human Avengers were left to go their separate ways. Kind of. Bruce and Tony got in Tony's car to head for a relaxing day at Stark Towers. Clint and Natasha climbed into Natasha's car.

"Have fun with your obviously favored protégée." Kai told Clint.

"One of these days, we're going to go at it again. I'll beat you up." Natasha warned her. Kai rolled her eyes, unconcerned.

"You didn't last time."

"I was mind controlled and you weren't my mission!" Natasha protested.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Red." To be honest, Kai wasn't looking forward to going another round with Natasha. She patted the side of Clint's car and stepped back so he could drive off. Then she walked over to Steve, who was waiting on the back of his motorcycle.

"Ready?" He asked.

"I'm going to warn you, I have a pretty good poker face."

"You don't know how to play poker."

"That's why you're going to teach me, Stevie. Let's go." She climbed on behind him and wrapped her hands around his waist. He rolled his eyes and then pulled away from the curb.


End file.
